


Meet Me at the Bar

by Strain_of_the_Stress



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 21:38:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4495638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strain_of_the_Stress/pseuds/Strain_of_the_Stress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Away from the flying bullets of the galactic battlefields, Elizabeth Shepard and Garrus Vakarian rebuild a relationship in the midst of the largest, most lethal war the galaxy has ever known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ch. 1 - Just like Old Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Shepard begins the war, she finds an old friend on Menae.

Menae, 2400 Hours

“Looks like your summit just got a lot more interesting.”

Elizabeth Shepard looked at Garrus before shaking her head slightly, exhaling slightly as she thought of the massive undertaking the Primarch had just requested of her – _Convince the two races in the galaxy which arguably hate each other the most to fight with each other. Yeah, no problem. I’ll just call wrex right now and tell him he needs to make nice and play well with the race that sterilized his people for a thousand years. I’m sure he’ll be fine with that…_

She turned and walked back towards the structure in which she had found Victus, returning a salute from a young Turian soldier before taking over the comm set, syncing her own headset and calling in Evac.

“Cortez, this is Shepard. We’ve moved a couple of clicks from our last position. Sending you the coordinates now.”

“Roger that, ma’am. ETA ten minutes.”

“Understood, Shepard out.”

Shepard pushed back from the unit, walking back down the ramp out of the structure and turned to the left, stepping forwards as she removed her helmet, tasted the dust and metallic tang of mass effect weapons mixed with the omnipresent stench of death and wounds and the burning of a world which loomed overhead. She walked up to the ledge which over-looked the crashed Turian ship, staring at the husk of what was once a great battle vessel, a component in the strongest military fleet ever created reduced to a smoking husk devoid of life or fight. Garrus walked up besides her, matching her gaze towards the ship. When he spoke, his voice was tired, his subharmonics sounding exhausted almost to a degree that she hadn’t heard since she found him on Omega. The past few hours of fighting he had sounded typically energetic, focused on his next target and the battle around him such as allowed no room for fatigue or exhaustion. But as they talked now, the past three days of fighting he had endured became apparent.

“I spoke to the Primarch, he said he’ll need a few more minutes to secure his command here, do what he can to make sure we don’t lose this position.”

“Evac’s coming in ten, he’ll have until then.”

A little bit of sarcasm slipped into Garrus’ voice as he responded, a shadow of an old repartee thrown by the specter of a galactic scale war.

“Ordering around Primarchs now, I see?”

Shepard laughed slightly, almost bitterly as she too felt the fatigue of the past few days settle in. Since they had left Earth she had barely slept, and paused only to take a few nutrient bars to keep herself going, adrenaline and pure determination replacing her need for food and sleep as she scrambled to pick up the pieces of shattered defenses and battered militaries to face the greatest threat the Galaxy had ever known.

“Well Generals  call you ‘Sir’ now, so I figured it’s not too different…”

Garrus laughed, similarly to Shepard’s in the bitterness and exhaustion, but with more cynicism, an incisive undertone resounding through his subharmonics that resented the destruction that was being wrought around him, that there was no weapon ready, no defense capable of repelling it.

“That’s just a formality.”

“Could have fooled Corinthus.”

The two stood for  heart beats, regarding the scene in front of them, eyes moving slowly from the barren landscape to the methodically marching Reaper, the sounds of its massive legs impacting the dusty ground with cataclysmic force and it’s weapon being fired with eviscerating efficiency echoing through the thin air as a mild wind blew over them, the sweat on Shepard’s forehead chilling with the air. She was the first to interrupt the silence, softly, her voice hoarse with dehydration, but no less lacking for emotion and earnestness.

“It’s good to see you, Garrus. I didn’t know… I hoped…”

Garrus interrupted, his voice low in timber and smooth in timbre, the subharmonics resonating through his chest as he spoke slowly, looking down and to his right at Shepard as he did so.

“It’s good to see you too. We got a few reports from Earth before it went dark, I wasn’t sure if… you know.”

Shepard shook her head, laughing slightly under her breath, more a series of repeatedly emphatic exhales than any actual laugh, closing her eyes lightly and crossing her arms as she did so.

“This is going to be one hell of a war.”

Garrus’ reply was strangely warm,  the difference in sound and tone slight but to a trained ear, the new quality encouraging, bolstering, giving no reduction or attempt at euphemism of the destruction at hand but instead a burst of confidence for Shepard’s own abilities, for the war effort which she had so suddenly found herself spear-heading.

“Yeah, it sure is. But even if we don’t know how to win it yet, Shepard, we’ll find a way. You’ll find a way. That’s what you do. What we do. It’s how we stopped Saren, destroyed the Collectors, and how we’re going to beat these bastards or die trying.”

Shepard looked to her left at Garrus, a small smile filled infinitely more with a desperate need to hope than any actual mirth or humor or happiness clinging to her face as she spoke, her green eyes meeting Garrus’ blue.

“You think we’ll find a way?”

Garrus turned to face her, looking down as he spoke, his voice direct, powerful, but no louder nor any harder than it had been before.

“I’ve had my doubts, after the battle here, sometimes it’s hard to see us winning this one. But if anybody’s going to do it, it’s you. And I’ll be right behind you, stylishly stealing all the headshots.”

Shepard’s eyes lit up at the joke as her smile absorbed a little bit of the dry humor which had snuck in to the end of Garrus’ statement and become so apparent in his Turian-equivalent of a rye grin, her smile matching his as she turned to face him, cocking her hips out to one side.

“Last time I checked, big guy, I had the jump on you by five.”

“You haven’t been facing down husks for three days.”

“And you weren’t on Mars.”

“You might have a better kill-count, but I think I’ve still got the headshot count.”

“Wait till you have to slot a shot through a giant riot shield and then we’ll talk.”

As Garrus opened his mouth to respond Shepard heard a crackle of static through her ear-piece, holding up one-hand to silence Garrus as she brought her right two fingers to her ear, turning her head slightly to the left and looking down as she listened to the transmission from Cortez.

“Commander, I’m incoming, ETA twenty seconds.”

She turned and looked at Garrus who simply nodded as she pivoted on her right foot, thrusting her left out as she walked towards the center of the camp, nodding at Vega, who then walked over and alerted the primarch.

“Roger that Cortez, standing by.”

She and Garrus stood beside each other as they watched the small blue dot that was the Shuttle’s front thrusters appear in the black sky, juxtaposed against the black planet covered in fiery red and orange blotches. Shepard turned her head to Garrus as she spoke, her eyes still fixed on the shuttle as she heard the Turian Soldiers scrambling to establish security around the landing zone.

“I’m assuming you’re going to get yourself set up in the forwards battery?”

“I’m assuming there are calibrations still to be done?”

“I’ll come find you, we can see who’s winning.”

“Deal. But come prepared to lose.”

“Like hell I will.”

Normandy, Forward Battery, 0800 Hours

The conversation had started off easily, a familiar cadence settling in around their comments and sarcastic replies, the bedrock of years of friendship and shared experiences holding underneath the weight of the stress and death and battle and fear which they had both experienced for the past few days. It was clear that Garrus had been throw a harrowing experience beyond anything Shepard had ever seen him after, even Omega, the shadows in his eyes going much deeper than exhaustion, reaching back to lost friends, loved ones, a planet burning around him, his voice steely and hard, not with the anger and resentment which the burning bodies and pool of cerulean blood had developed the last time they had been reunited, but rather a determination and desperate intensity which was focused solely on winning the conflict at hand.

The conversation moved quickly beyond their small greetings, promises unspoken of stories yet to be shared of the past three days, big guns and aim. Shepard was slightly startled, if not relieved, when Garrus brought up the topic of their romance, however, the subject one she had been hoping to smooth over but denying the thought, occluded by troop movements and fallen planets, war planning and unanswerable distress calls.

“But I can go out and get new ones, if it will help.”

Shepard laughed again, looking up at Garrus after he had approached, seeing the familiar curve of his mandibles and angular familiarity in his facial plates. She laughed like she had before, some cross between a chuckle and a giggle, though she would deny the latter playing any part. _Alliance Commanders do not chuckle, I would never do such a thing. And certainly, definitely not with a Turian such as Garrus Vakarian watching._

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Garrus.”

“If this war has anything to say, I may not be able to promise not to.”

Shepard laughed again, a small moment of mirth before the bitter taste  which had lingered in her mouth since Earth resumed its station, burning her tongue and seeping the moisture out of her throat as she felt the tightness in her chest and the buzz in her head of so many possibilities, so many voices, so many opportunities to fail. She closed her eyes gently against the influx of emotion, turning around and walking back up into the forward battery, leaving Garrus standing behind, baffled and flaring his mandibles in confusion. She made her way towards the tactical terminal Garrus had set up, the original “Technical and engineering” work station a perfect conduit for the information feeds which he needed to process, little blue circles moving around the reds, all too often getting destroyed before the entire scene went red and moved to another environment – a new planet, a new simulation, she didn’t know. And it didn’t matter. Too much red.

Elizabeth bowed her head, the words bitter in her voice as she spoke.

“Dammit, Garrus, you know I want to say yes. But, for once, I can’t help but wonder how smart this is.”

“How smart what is? Scars? Pretty terrible, especially when delivered by a rocket.”

Garrus approached behind her, leaning against the terminal next to her, turning it off with a few interface pushes, silencing the small beeps in the back ground forcing Elizabeth’s attention to his face. Her eyes were surprisingly wet.

“No, us. You, me… This.” Shepard gestured at the space between them. “We’ve faced long odds before, been through plenty of battles and injuries and somehow both made it out of here alive. But… I can’t guarantee we’ll do that. There’s too much here. Too many hostiles. This is the big one, Garrus, the fight we’ve trained for but haven’t come close to prepared for. I don’t…”

Elizabeth paused, taking a deep breath and blinking heavily as she felt the force of the stress and the fatigue and the despair and the incredible loss and suffering weigh down behind her eyes, pushing the water further onto them, threatening to assault the rest of her face. Garrus waited, patiently, having stood up and turned around, leaning his back towards the blank terminal screen, looking to his right down at Shepard as she bowed her head and collected her thoughts. By the time she looked up again, the area around her eyes was red with agitation.

“I don’t know if I can lose you again. So… I guess I wonder if I want to give this screwed up galaxy the chance to take you.”

Garrus spoke softly, understandingly, his voice a cushioned restatement of what he thought Shepard was saying.

“So instead you’ll just distance yourself so that losing doesn’t hurt?”

She nodded mutely, her mouth closed and her breaths slightly ragged through her nose as she remembered a pool of blood and a wet gasp, a fear that burrowed through her stomach as her hands became wet and warm and the medivac shuttle came too late, as the doctor operated for too long and Garrus slept too deeply, and the incredible relief and fear and every emotion mixed in one that bubbled from her face when she saw him walk through the briefing room door. Timidly, she began again, her voice crescendoing as loss and memory seeped into her neutral tones, finishing with a spent emptiness that echoed of a thousand futures she never wanted to imagine with a thousand fateful bullets.

“I lost… I lost everyone. On Akuze. And I loved some of them, like a family. They were my first unit, even before N-school. And I told myself I wouldn’t let myself… wouldn’t break my own heart like that again. We’re soldiers, Garrus, we gamble with our lives every damn day. Attachment like that? Love? It doesn’t quite fit in. And then Alenko came in and despite everything I fell for him… Well what did that get me? A crater on a planet which name I try and forget every day? And then you, Garrus, you go and practically try to kill yourself on Omega, and every damn mission afterwards, until we caught Sidonis. And then I got locked up. I lost you. You were never supposed to be the one I lost. You were… you were always going to be by my side. I’ve lost so much, Garrus. And I’ll live with it, I’ve lived with it so far. Hell, I’ve died with it and then lived with it again. I just… I don’t think I can deal with losing you. Not for good.”

Garrus nodded, looking pensively towards the rest of the room while Shepard stood up, turning around to lean back against the terminal, drying her eyes and sniffling as she tried to regain her composure. Slowly, Garrus began.

“I know what you’re saying, Shepard, Liz. My team, on Omega; my team on Palaven; even you, Shepard, losing all of them, all of you, hurt. Like I didn’t think it could. But you know, Shepard, eventually I realized something.”

He paused waiting for a response, Elizabeth raising an eyebrow as she looked towards him, her eyes still read and her nose still running but her face, for the most part, closer to the composure she was trying to will it towards.

He continued.

“Eventually, I realized that for how much I’d hate to lose you, I’d hate even more to never be with you. Or them. Any of them. I hated watching and knowing they had died so much, it almost put a bullet in Sidonis’ head and will sure as hell make sure that I put a bullet in every damned Reaper I see. But I wouldn’t give up the memories I have, that made it so hard to lose them, for the world. I don’t think I could stand losing you, not again. But I also don’t think I could, can, stand this war, not without you. If you don’t want me, if you don’t feel the same way, that’s your call. But personally, I don’t want to be anywhere but on your six.”

Elizabeth looked at him for a little while, her eyes narrowing as she looked into his small, blue, unmoving ones. After a few heartbeats (eternities according to Garrus’ nervous mind), she looked forwards, laughing slightly, before continuing to laugh harder and harder, Garrus joining in after the first few chuckles. Like a rubber band that had been drawn to the point of snapping and then returned the two continued to laugh until they were both grabbing their mid-sections and heartily guffawing, the tension of the past few days and of the conversation exiting them with a violently humorous reaction. After a few minutes of laughing, Elizabeth wiped her eyes of the tears her laughing had caused before looking back at Garrus, smiling for the first time since Earth with pure, actual happiness.

“You always know what to say, don’t you Vakarian?”

Garrus shrugged, his mandibles wide in a Turian smile.

“Call it a talent.”

Elizabeth’s face sobered up as she took a deep breath, easing the pain in her stomach from the laughing and collected her thoughts, considered what she was going to say. She began slowly, though happily, her smile growing as she continued to deliver her news, and as Garrus’ grew as well.

“You’re right, Garrus. For how much I’d hate to lose you, I’d hate even more to never have you. This war is… hell. No other way to put it. and there’s a chance, too good a chance for my liking, that we’ll both be dead by the end of it. But until then? There’s no-one I’d rather have behind me.”

“I’m glad you think so, Shepard. Because I don’t think I’d follow anybody else head-long into a war that’s been brewing for 50,000 years.”

They both laughed, standing and staring out into the main battery, before Shepard shifted slightly to her left. Both of their hands had fallen down between them, and as Shepard closed the distance between them, she searched his hand out with her own, not looking down. When their fingers met they grabbed each other, both still looking forwards as they sat there, side-by side, enjoying the presence and reminder thereof which was represented through the simple junction of three and five fingers.

After five minutes of companionable silence, Shepard spoke up.

“You eaten yet?”

Garrus cocked his head, looking through the bulkhead over top of him as he thought.

“No, and come to think of it I’m starving.”

They both stood up, their hands leaving the other’s embrace but walking a few centimeters closer as they exited the battery and made their way down the front hallway, watching as the Alpha shift crew-men began ot leave their breakfast table to go assume their posts.

“So, you’re telling me you’re calibrating on an empty stomach?”

Garrus walked behind the island, bending down to get food out of the special dextro locker which had since been stocked by a small Turian supply shuttle, pulling out an ever-appetizing package of “Emergency Ration #25b”, turning his head over his right shoulder as he spoke.

“I believe the phrase is ‘Art waits for no Turian.’ “

Shepard likewise walked to the Human fridge, retrieving a cold plate of “Ration Pack 37i” which had been abandoned in favor of a call from Admiral Hackett regarding small-flotilla tactical doctrine, placing it inside the re-heating unit besides Garrus’, standing closely beside him to the aft of the machine.

“I didn’t know you had art?”

“We do, it’s called calibrating.”

The re-heater beeped a pleasant announcement that their food was done.

“Uh huh.”

They reached for their food and took a seat.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I don’t mean to play favorites, but oh my goodness this was so much easier to write than anything my last Shakarian attempt put out. Elizabeth writes so much easier than Kathryn, and the entire thing flowed much more like what I write for John than Kat. Sorry for changing the Garrus-Shepard reunion scene in the forwards battery, I try not to change game dialogue too often, but what the game had by default just didn’t seem to fit the characters and, what’s the phrase: “We can fix anything with fanfiction!”  
> 


	2. Ch.2 - Polished Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On their way to and then after the diplomatic meeting, Shepard and Garrus find a few minutes to themselves against the storm.

Normandy, Deck 1, 2300 Hours

“Shepard, you called. Need me for…”

Garrus paused his sentence as he walked through the door into the stateroom, the datapad he was holding in his left hand going limp at his side as he sniffed the air, angling his head upwards and up and sniffing again, taking a few tentative steps forwards, continuing to smell the air. When he came to the stairs he looked down, being greeted by Elizabeth sitting on the port side of the couch, a single black leather shoe in her hand and another on the table, an open tin of some black substance on the table as well, along with a small cup of water. In her hand, she had what looked like an old shirt, with smudges of presumably the same black substance in little dots all over it.

As Garrus sauntered down the stairs, his mandibles opening slightly in mild confusion, Elizabeth took the T-shirt away from the shoe she was holding, against which it appeared she was rubbing a wet part of the T-shirt vigorously, looking up and smiling, slightly tiredly, at Garrus. Garrus spoke, standing over the table.

“What is that smell, Shepard? Is it that stuff?”

He pointed at the black substance.

Elizabeth laughed, setting the shoe down next to its match, though the one on the table appeared to be noticeably more reflective in parts, the rag falling between the pair and the cup of water. As she spoke, she massaged her right hand with her left, squeezing the fleshy bits in-between the first finger and the thumb and seeming to close her eyes in relief. Her voice sounded tired, an undertone of stress hiding behind the ever-present sarcasm which only an ear trained in subvocals could pick-up.

“Well, I was going to try and fool you, saying it’s a human mating paint or something, but truth be told it’s shoe polish.”

“Shoe polish?”

Elizabeth laughed gently, nodding slowly and angling her head slightly to the right in a seeming consideration of the unlikely answer.

“Yep. Shoe polish.”

Garrus took a seat on the remaining leg of the couch, crossing his legs in his distinctly Turian way as he settled in, watching as Shepard picked her shoe back up, dipping the rag first in the water and then collecting a glob of what was apparently polish before applying it vigorously to the inboard panel, the scuffed leather quickly filling up with the material and taking on a matte appearance. Garrus spoke as he watched, his eyes fixed on Shepard’s furtive, repeated action as she took the rag in tiny circles up and down and across and back the panel of leather.

“Last I checked, humans used epoxycene for their dress shoes, had a few guys in C-Sec who loved to complain about how hard the stuff was, always just told them it meant they could kick each other’s asses harder. From what they said, though, the stuff never scuffed. No polish.”

Shepard nodded again, dipping the rag once more in the water before continuing her tiny circles around the panel of leather, the material now becoming noticeably more reflective, though the swirls her rag caused could still be seen.

“Most of the military does, yeah. But I’m a generational military family. Hell, I think there’s been a Shepard in the military for the last 200 years straight. It’s a bit of a family tradition, polishing your shoes before a big event.”

“I’m guessing this ‘big event’ is the diplomat meeting we’re heading too?”

Elizabeth nodded, sticking her tongue out slightly from her mouth. She dipped her rag again as Garrus watched, the swirls slowly going away on the leather as she did so, both hers and Garrus’ attention fixed wholly on the shoe that was in her hand.  Her voice was focused when she spoke again, slightly distant as she concentrated on the polishing at hand, staring with an intensity that would polish the shoe instantly, if possible.

“You know, the leaders of two council races and the one that won the Rachni wars. No big deal.”

Another dip, more small circles. Garrus found himself leaning forwards as he watched, seeming to be drawn in by Elizabeth’s uncompromising focus. She continued, her voice rising and falling as she told a story, Garrus enraptured as she did so.

“I remember my mom doing this every night before anything large, a hearing or something. She’d sit down – her stateroom was about the size of this one, she had a smaller couch, though – with one shoe, and my dad would grab the other one… well, when he was around. But they’d sit down with a can of shoe polish, a glass of water, and two rags. They’d sit there for hours, I used to think it was so boring, got into all kinds of trouble. But they’d talk about what was happening, prepare for what was going to come. It was almost like a ritual between the two of them.”

Another dip, more small circles.

“When Dad died, I took over for him, and then we would talk about some of the other kids on the station, on the ship when I was with her, school and all that stuff. I still thought it was boring, but at least I was talking to her, that became more and more of a luxury as she rose in rank.”

Another dip, more small circles.

“When I finally joined up, I used the epoxycene shoes until I graduated OCS. Then, the first thing I got from my mom after commissioning was a pair of leather shoes and a can of polish. I put it off for months, it wasn’t until I went to my first command that I actually pulled them out, I guess the tradition just kind of… set in.”

Another dip, more small circles. Garrus shifted slightly in his seat, now sitting fully forwards and staring as Elizabeth continued polishing. She chuckled, slightly as she continued.

“God, I must have spent four hours polishing before I reported to N-school. I only wore them for a few hours, just reporting in before we changed into our hard-suits, but it didn’t matter. It helps me to calm down, get myself ready, I guess. Like cleaning a rifle, sort of. Only difference is, this weapon is intended for the conference room, not the battlefield.”

Another dip, more small circles. Garrus looked at Shepard as she finished, laughing slightly at her last comment before speaking.

“You think you’re going to convince Wrex to give us support with… hand-shined shoes?”

Shepard laughed at the joke, swatting at him with the towel in her hand, Garrus leaning back too slowly and the towel making a wet impact sound against his left shoulder-plate.

“No, he’d probably say they’re ‘soft as a baby pyjak’ or some Wrex-ism like that. No, this is for nobody but myself.”

Elizabeth turned the shoe underneath the lights in the cabin, scrutinizing the panel she had finished before nodding to herself, setting the shoe delicately down on the table before standing up, putting her hands on her lower back as she stretched, Garrus standing up with her. He spoke to her as she draped the old shirt, now thoroughly soaked, over one of the arms of the couch, tossing the remaining water down the incinerator chute.

“Well, if you want, I’ll help you next time. Maybe we can reflect the Reapers to death.”

Shepard laughed as she picked the shoes up, placing them delicately in the shoe-drawer in the wall. Garrus continued.

“Anyways, Shepard, you called me up here for something. Care to tell me what it is?”

Elizabeth turned and smiled at Garrus as she reached up, un-doing the shoulder pad restraint which fell across the top of her chest, exhaling in relief as the article of clothing relinquished her.

“You’re already doing it. Just keep it up.”

Garrus cocked his head, his mandibles flaring in confusion, his brow plates coming together atop his face. His voice was incredulous as he watched Elizabeth walking to the bed, sitting down and pulling her boots off, massaging the bottom of her feet and side of her shins.

“You wanted me here to… watch you polish your shoes?”

“I was polishing, so it works.”

“You’ve lost me, Liz.”

Elizabeth laughed before standing up, padding over towards Garrus in sock-clad feet, stopping a meter in front of him and placing her hands on her hips, throwing them to the left.

“Well, I let it slide last night. But it’s sure as hell not going to continue on this ship, not so long as I have any say in it. And certainly not while that damned battery continues to be as isolated as it is.”

Garrus mandibles’ flared further in confusion as he moved his head forwards slightly, tilting it further to a twenty degree angle to his left as he looked at Elizabeth, a small smirk sneaking onto her previously reprimanding face.

“You’ve really…”

Elizabeth broke out laughing, grabbing the front of Garrus’ cowl to pull him down, standing on her tip-toes to plant a small kiss on the un-damaged side of his face, continuing to laugh as she stepped away, walking up to the desk as she spoke, standing in front of the Terminal, staring intently at it.

“You’re cute when you’re confused, you know that?”

Garrus’ face changed to a mix of exasperation and confusion at her comment, his voice slightly resenting as he followed her up the small staircase, standing at the boundary of the desk as he spoke.

“Don’t hold it against me if I try and deny you that… particular satisfaction as often as possible. You mind telling me what the hell you mean?”

The terminal shut down at Elizabeth’s last input before she turned to face Garrrus, a soft smile emanating not only from her mouth but her eyes as well, her face an image of sympathetic caring and love.

“You’re spending the night here, Garrus. I’ll be damned if you keep on sleeping in the Forwards Battery so long as I have this over-sized stateroom.”

Garrus stopped, his face freezing as he looked at the still-smiling Elizabeth, his feet staying planted firmly as his gaze followed her into the bathroom, shaking his head slightly as he regained composure and walked up to lean casually – or, at least, an attempted casual – against the door. Elizabeth was running some kind of buzzing electronic ship (he was fairly certain humans called it a “toothbrush”) over her teeth, an off-white foam forming in her mouth and dripping into the metal sink.

“You sure you want me up here, Liz? I’ve got things I can take care of downstairs over-night, and if something goes wrong with a firing algorithm I should be there. Besides, The Primarch might try to reach me and that’s the last place I told him I would be, and I’ve got my terminal set up down there…”

Elizabeth spit into the sink, filling a very-small cup next to the sink fixture with water before rinsing her mouth. She stepped forwards, standing in front of Garrus and taking his hands within hers, her voice low and earnest, almost shameful of the emotion it carried but more so for admitting the existence of such sentiment than embarrassment at its content and intent. She looked down at the space between them, eyes flitting between their hands.

“Garrus, we both said we wanted to be… with, each other for this war. And I meant it. If you want to sleep down in the battery, I suppose I won’t stop you. But, tonight… every other night… it would mean a lot… the world, to me if you were to stay up here.”

She looked up at Garrus, smiling small at him, her face showing an Elizabeth Shepard which Garrus knew few were every privileged to see, the Elizabeth who was less than an ideal and a poster-figure, who was not the most prominent Commander in the Alliance Navy but just a remarkable, incredible woman.

“I want you with me, even at night. At my six.”

Garrus’s mandibles opened in a soft Turian smile as he took a step towards Elizabeth, his voice low and earnest, the subharmonics screaming of love and affection and contentment which he doubted she registered on anything besides a subconscious level, though that was enough for him. For them.

“Liz, I said I don’t want to be anywhere but on your six, and I meant it. Even here. Just give me a minute to grab my stuff.”

Elizabeth smiled as Garrus spoke, taking a step back and relinquishing his hands, the Turian stepping backwards and turning to walk towards the hatch, Shepard speaking right as he reached the door, her voice suddenly confident again, dripping with flirtation and innuendo.

“Besides, Vakarian, it makes… catching up, a lot easier.”

Garrus turned on the ball of his foot at the door, grinning shamelessly at Elizabeth as he spoke, his voice low and as alluring as Shepard had ever heard it.

“You wouldn’t happen to need to blow off any… steam, would you Shepard?”

Elizabeth laughed, giggled really (though she would never admit it – _Alliance Commanders do not, I repeat do not giggle_) as she waved him through the door, being greeted with a responding call of Garrus’ laughter through the closing doorway as she smiled, turning back towards the bathroom to continue getting ready for the night.

Normandy, Forwards Battery, 1200

Garrus could hear the anger in Shepard’s footsteps almost before the door opened, her feet not needing combat boots nor ablative armor to attempt to beat the deck into submission as she walked, the sounds echoing through the hallway as the plating protested and warned all those in front of her. The door closed with the same speed, though he could have sworn it sounded more aggressive in response to Shepard – _who knows, EDI’s more intuitive than people give her credit –_ as she walked inside the battery. Garrus turned around, grinning at Shepard as she grimaced a smile back at him, turning to the right as she marched over to his weapons bench. He flinched as Shepard swept a few of his carefully laid out tools – _admittedly, ‘laid out’ is a bit of a loose definition_ – to claim a seat atop the bench.

“So… meeting went well then?”

Shepard’s voice was frustrated, angry, intense; spoken through clenched teeth and tight jaw. 

“We’re on our way to Sur’Kesh, if that’s what you mean.”

Garrus laughed, de-activating his gunnery terminal before walking around it to the edge which faced Shepard, leaning back against it.

“Well, not really. Your shoes look very shiny, for the record.”

If voices could carry acid, seething pots of boiling acid, Shepard’s would almost certainly be filled with the stuff.

“Thanks. I was really worried about it. Goddammit, I just…”

Elizabeth stopped herself, remembering lessons on “not complaining to subordinates” just as she started the sentence, causing Garrus’ head to tilt slightly to the right, an eyebrow-plate lifting and his mandibles coming tightly to his mouth. His voice was inquisitive, though a very practiced neutral.

“You just what, Liz.”

Garrus watched as the tension in Shepard seemed to boil hotter than it had since her entrance, her face contorting into an angry expression of vehement frustration and intense exacerbation, her green eyes shooting daggers at him for asking the question as she took a giant breath in through her nose and rolled her lips inwards in a seething expression. As she exhaled, however, the fiery frustration and anger seemed to leave with the air as her shoulders bowed and her head dropped down to her chest, her hands raising in mild helplessness before slapping the sides of her dress-uniform. When she looked up at Garrus again, the shadow under her eyes seemed deeper, darker, the passionate and angered frustration morphing into its exhausted sibling, her eyes seeming to sink into their sockets, retreating under the fatigue which seemed to plague the rest of her features. Her voice was, while not beaten, certainly lacking the fire and brimstone which had been in it before, boiling acid replaced by the slow molasses of exhaustion.

“I just don’t know what the hell is wrong with these people that they can’t see beyond their own goddamned noses. Actually, the ones with noses aren’t even the problems.”

“Salarians?”

“Yeah. Victus is cooperative enough, he’s a soldier still, even showed up in his dress-blues. And Wrex… he knows the need, he’s just using it to make head-way for his people. I should be angry at him for demanding the cure instead of just handing us soldiers, but I suppose there won’t be a lot of soldiers to hand us unless we get the cure.”

“That is a generation down the road, you know.”

“This war could go that long. We need soldiers not just for now, but for the possibility of a generational conflict.”

“That’s a grueling thought.”

“Tell me about it. No, the Salarian Dalatrass was the one who decided to stir up trouble. Honestly, you’d think thousand-year-old racism would take a back seat to the gigantic sentient death-bots which are knocking at everybody’s door.”

Garrus laughed slightly as Shepard’s description, pushing himself off of his terminal to walk over to the bench Shepard was sitting on, leaning on it next to her, matching her gaze at the omnipresent dance of blue and red circles on his tactical terminal across the room.

“You’d think, wouldn’t you? But some of these hatreds are taught from birth, even Turians get it. There are children’s stories which revolve around evil Krogan kidnapping and beating lost children, some variations even say they eat them, Wrex got a kick out of them when I told him about them. We’re told they’re monsters from the first time we hear about them, a lot of people have a hard time forgetting those stories to see the truth.”

Elizabeth shook her head, pursing her lips as she did so, rolling her eyes and sighing deeply afterwards.

“What the hell is so hard about forgetting them? I mean, she has proof they’re not true in front of her! If she’d just pull her head out of her…”

Garrus interrupted her, causing Shepard’s face to erupt with mild frustration and turn to her right to look at Garrus, a perfect rendition of her “I hate it when somebody interrupts me” face which so many other officers and soldiers had learned the lethality of, but which Garrus weathered with cool continuation.

“If she’d just realize the truth, it’d be easy, yes. But humans have the benefit of being the young ones in the galaxy, you haven’t had enough time to develop a deep-seated hate for a race.”

“One might be starting now.”

“You know what I mean, Liz. I’m sorry it’s frustrating, I know how hard it is to fight against bias and centuries old racism. It’s inane and unproductive, trust me, I get that. But at least we’re heading to Sur’Kesh, right?”

Shepard smiled slightly at the comment, pursing her lips again and nodding, closing her eyes gently. Her voice was softer, in both timbre and volume, conciliatory to a point she had been clinging too since the end of the meeting.

“Yes, yes we are.”

Garrus smiled, putting his left arm around Shepard and pulling her quickly into a short one-armed hug before his tactical terminal turned a wholly un-settling shade of red, Garrus relinquishing Shepard quickly and striding with purpose over towards the terminal. While he did so, Shepard lifter herself off and jumped down from her seat on the weapons bench, striding with much easier steps than early over towards Garrus, her dress-shoes eliciting stocato reports from the deck plating and the Senior-Officer chain on her uniform jingling with every step.

“Everything okay, Gar?”

Garrus was tapping frantically away at the haptic interface, multiple lists dominating the screen and scrolling with un-readable speed across the screen, Garrus glancing at them occasionally, spastically before turning back towards the keyboard, a search bar clear in the upper-left hand portion of the screen.

 “Garrus, what are you looking for? What is it?”

Garrus continued to ignore Shepard, tapping as quickly as he could on the terminal, the search paramaters changing with every new entry, the screen repeatedly showing three fatal words in bold letters infront of the constantly moving lists: “NO ENTRY FOUND”. Elizabeth continued to watch before she looked at the top of the lists, seeing the titles: “Palaven Casualty List, Missing, 4 of 52”; “Palaven Casualty List, Injured, 5 of 20”; “Palavae Casualty List, Confirmed killed, 37 of 856”.

Elizabeth walked up behind Garrus as his hands slowed down, finally dropping from the interface as “NO ENTRY FOUND” showed again on the screen, Garrus closing his eyes and bowing his head as Elizabeth stepped next to him, taking his left hand in her right. Though he didn’t look up, Garrus’ hand quickly latched onto hers, gripping it tightly, almost desperately as she heard a low whine begin in his subharmonics, felt it resonate throughout her chest with incredible sadness and worry and concern, no other sign of his grief but that enough. Slowly, Garrus began to talk, carefully navigating his own emotions as he felt his world draw into a sharp focus with the incisive emotion.

“I asked the Primarch to forward me all the casualty lists from Palaven, I still haven’t heard from… about… I guess it’d be a bit much to hope that the world goes to hell and my dad and sister stay alright, wouldn’t it? This war’s too damned big to be that fair.”

Elizabeth squeezed Garrus’ hand, gently, reminding him of her grip, a gesture he quickly returned. She could still feel his soft pining in her chest, could see the closed eyes and the tight mandibles, no tears falling from his alien eyes though the grief needed no such expression, the tension in his body, the defeated angle of his head well enough to explain it. She moved towards him, rubbing her right arm against his left, resting her head gently against his shoulder, setting it down softly on the edge of his shoulder plate. He angled his head, the side of his just barely touching the top of hers, the contact well-known and its reassurance much needed, however small it may be. When Elizabeth spoke, it was softly, caringly, earnestly.

“You’ll hear something, Garrus. Eventually. I can’t say it’ll be good news, you and I both know that’s a promise I can’t keep. But we’re going to Sur’Kesh, we’ve got Wrex and The Primarch talking, we’re doing everything we can.”

When Garrus spoke, his response was dry, devoid of his characteristic hope, full instead of doubtful hope and powerful doubt, questions unasked hovering in the timbre and fears unspoken staying at his lips, though Elizabeth heard all of it.  

“What if… what if our best isn’t enough, Liz? We’re doing everything we can, but this is beyond anything we’ve ever seen. This isn’t a rogue spectre, isn’t missing colonies, this is a galactic war which killed the greatest empire we have any record of. Dammit, how the hell do we fight that? How can we? What if… our best just isn’t enough?”

Elizabeth squeezed Garrus’ hand again, turning him to face her as she grabbed his other hand, holding them both in a posture which had come to mean intimacy and familiarity and comfort for the both of them, Garrus bringing his forehead down to meet hers in the classic Turian expression of love and affection, Shepard speaking quietly, passionately, with a soft intensity which flowed directly into Garrus’ empty voice.

“If our best isn’t enough then we keep giving it until it is. We’re facing a long shot, yes. And all of us have our doubts, Garrus. But all those people, your family, are what we’re fighting for. Now more than ever before. So even if our best isn’t enough, we give it anyways, and we give it until it is or we die trying.”

Garrus smiled slightly, rubbing his thumb over the back of Elizabeth’s hand as he spoke, softly, a slight bit of trademark sarcasm and wit returning to his voice.

“I guess we just do as we’ve always done, and just run head-long into the problem until we solve it, huh?”

“I’ve been told that’s what we’re good at.”

“The best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, second chapter of Elizabeth, and I’m already loving writing her. Sorry if the story isn’t moving along terribly quickly, I’m trying to write this story along with my Elizabeth Shepard play-through. I know there’s a lot of fluff in here, not a whole lot of story or plot covered, but honestly the game does a good job of covering the majority of the plot, so I just like to fill in some of the more… intimate, behind-the-scenes scenes. 
> 
> I know Garrus’ family isn’t mentioned until much later in the game, but when it is it sounds like it’s a repeating issue, so I figured now would be as good a time to introduce it as ever. I’m still trying to pin down non-bantering Garrus, so hopefully the more emotional parts with him have been coming out alright. I usually fell pretty good about them by the finish, but any feedback in that regard would be very much appreciated.  
> Oh, and in case anybody is wondering, epoxycene is not a real material. Completely pulled that one out of my ass. 
> 
> Comments and feedback is, as always, extremely appreciated; I want as much feedback as you guys can give me, it really helps me write (even if it’s just a “hey, I liked it”, that still helps in keeping me motivated and feeling good). So, if you have anything to say, please say it.  
> Those who aren’t already doing so should come join the little tumblr party we’re having over at my blog: http://strainofthestress.tumblr.com/ , I post all my stories there along with fics of my varioius Shepard’s and other fantastic ME stuff I find on that godforsaken (but much loved) website. 
> 
> Regardless, enjoy!
> 
> SotS


	3. Ch. 3 - Target Practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Sur'kesh, Shepard takes a bit of target practice.

Normandy, Shuttle Bay, 1200

Shepard squinted down the rifle, her eyes focusing on the target which appeared to be 120 meters away. She felt her breathing slow down, her entire world reduce to the path between herself and vaguely humanoid form. Her finger moved, slowly, smoothly to the trigger, curling around it with practiced slowness.

She raised the rifle slightly, dropping the sights down millimeter by millimeter towards the target. She took a breath in. Another breath out.

She squeezed the trigger.

The recoil from the rifle sent her sight-picture up drastically, the target leaving her line of sight before she could see the marks she had put in it, a soft beep from her omnitool indicating that she had hit it. She brought the rifle down quickly, sighting the target again. Her body tensed, like a cat stalking its prey, her muscles charged as if about to pounce.

Again, her finger slipped from the side of the rifle to curl around the trigger.

Again her rifle went up, coming down slowly, millimeter by millimeter.

Another breath in.

Another breath out.

She sqeezed the trigger.

Her rifle flew up as she heard the familiar beep from her omnitool indicating another hit, the sound a regular occurance for a soldier of her caliber, giving no indication of the location of the impact, simply its existence. She repeated the process again, bringing the target back into her sights, adjusting her firing position slightly, shuffling her feet softly against the metal deck plating.

Again, her finger found the trigger.

Again her sights began to fall towards the target.

Another breath in.

Another breath out.

She squeezed the trigger.

After returning her rifle to the target, Shepard clicked the safety on, dropping the rifle down to an easy carry as she walked back to the upgrade terminal behind her, the orange screen changing as she approached to display a picture of the humanoid target which she had been shooting at, green X’s marking her points of impact, diagnostics indicating the degree of lethality which such an impact would cause on a realistic target.

Three of the X’s were centered within three centimeters of each other in the center of the head-region, another five within five centimeters near the “critical zone” on the right-side of the “chest”, a zone of incredible lethality for almost any species, a hold-over from a past and long forgotten race. What concerned Shepard, however, were the two X’s which sat distinctly removed from her other two groupings, one 4.6 centimeters to the left of the chest group, another 5.8 centimeters below the head-grouping.

Elizabeth cursed slightly under her breath as she brought her hands to the haptic interface, reducing the range on the simulated target by two yards, resetting the simulation and watching the target-terminal she had set up 15 yards away adjust its image accordingly, the mass effect fields behind the device glowing an eery blue.

She walked around the desk, her mind racing as she analyzed her past ten shots, running over every inch of her posture, firing technique, shoulder and arm position in a litany of well-practiced concerns, resuming her position in the middle of the Shuttle Bay’s landing strip, bringing the rifle up and seating it on her right shoulder, the M8 sitting in her hands almost as an extension of herself.

“If you ever want to shoot accurately, Liz, you’re going to have to relax a bit…”

Elizabeth jumped slightly at the voice which came from behind her, dropping the rifle and spinning around to find Garrus leaning against the back of the shuttle bay, arms crossed in front of him and a trade-mark grin plastered on his face. She shook her head and rolled her eyes slightly, her left eyebrow raising as Garrus pushed his Torso forwards, leaving his leaning position to walk across the deserted shuttle bay towards her. The metallic clangs his boots made against the deck plating echoed around the cavernous space, leaving Elizabeth wondering wholly how he had managed to sneak up on her.

“Well, you should learn not to surprise N7’s during target practice, I might have shot you for all you know.”

Garrus shook his head as he passed the terminals, walking towards Shepard and pulling what appeared to be his Mantis off of his back, the weapons disengaging from the hard-mount and arming with a series of whirrs and a final electronic beep.

“No, you’re trained to drop your weapon whenever you hear a sound behind you, hostile or not, before you pivot. Stops you from flagging comrades.”

“Well didn’t somebody get a hold of a human combat manual.”

Garrus shrugged, now standing abreast of Shepard and looking down at his rifle, modifying it’s firing setting to “practice”, the auxiliary mass-effect core in the back of the weapon which provided recoil during practice shots engaging with a low hum.

“We did some joint operations when I was still in service.”

Shepard took a step back, gesturing with her left hand as she did so, sarcasm dripping with the “Magnanimous” gesture.

“Well, please, show me how I need to be shooting.”

Without hesitation Garrus took one-step into the firing position, bringing his rifle up to his shoulder. Due to the bulk of his cowl, like most Turian soldiers Garrus shot with a much more forwards-facing position than Shepard, his left arm coming underneath the bulk of his breast-bone to meet his right, stabilizing the rifle only a few centimeters in front of the grip. He angled his head to the right for a few moments, lining his eye up with the sight enough to double check his bead before he rasied it, turning to look at Shepard.

“Like this.”

While maintaining eye contact Garrus squeezed off three shots in rapid succession, the computer pinging politely each time, before dropping his rifle. Shepard rolled her eyes before turning to walk towards the terminal, aggressively bringing up the target as Garrus rounded the edge, coming to stand slightly behind her and to her right. Much to Elizabeth’s chagrin, there were three green X’s, one in the middle of the head-portion, and two within half a centimeter of each other in the critical zone. Shepard rolled her eyes, setting her weapon down as it folded up, facing Garrus with crossed arms and thrown hips.

“Not fair, vakarian. You had the visor.”

Garrus scoffed, dropping his weapon back onto the hard-mount on his back, tapping the visor with his left hand.

“As if I’d need it for a shot like that.”

Shepard shook her hand as he heard his statement, picking her rifle up and walking back and to the port-side of the hangar, opening up her arms locker and stowing her weapon, giving it a quick wipe before setting it on the mount inside the locker. Garrus followed suite, leaning against the crates that were besides the locker after he finished.

“So what brought you down here, Shepard? I don’t think I’ve seen you come in for target practice before.”

Shepard laughed slightly as she re-positioned her helmet slightly, ensuring that all the components were in place before closing the door, locking it, and leaning up against the door. She crossed her left foot outwards and over her right, the bottom of her boot perpendicular to the deck-plating in a posture similar to Garrus’, though nobody could ever determine who had learned it from who. She looked at Garrus as she spoke, bobbing her head to emphasize her statement, trying to hide the mild shame with which she said it as nonchalance, hoping the Turian would not pick up on it.

“Well, after Sur’kesh I noticed my shots were a bit spotty. I guess after months without shooting anything, even my skills can get a little rusty.”

Garrus nodded, closing his eyes gently before opening them, looking into Elizabeth’s. While he said nothing, she could tell he had still picked up on her mild shame, dropping her eyes from him with a furtive hope that he would observe none of it in her face.

“Things did go sideways pretty quickly down there, didn’t they?”

Shepard laughed at his understatement, a cold hard laugh which contained neither mirth nor happiness within a hundred meters, being filled instead with only bitter memories and pessimistic predictions.

“That’s one way of putting it, yeah. I only intended to bring weapons as a precautionary measure, I didn’t think we’d use them on that. Why would we have?”

“Because a terrorist human-supremist organization decided it just wanted to ruin your day?”

Another hard laugh, though this time the bitter memories ran deeper, a crazy man’s accusation and a series of military graves presenting themselves in her mind, the sour taste of months of guilt and years of grief hanging on her tongue.

“They ruined my day years ago, along with my squad’s. If we have to fight like that any time we try and get anything done…”

Elizabeth’s sentence trailed off, the silence a more poignant medium to convey the days and battles she imagined in their future, the struggle added to an already difficult fight, the relentless fatigue of days upon days of combat, the inevitable losses and injuries. The silent space at the end of her sentence was charged with a resigned determination that she would fight through the battles, that the tribulations would never be enough to halt her drive to victory, but also a mild fear at the mountainous task ahead, a seemingly impossible goal made steeper with the promise of resistance at every turn.

“It’ll be no worse than the diplomatic fighting you’ve dealt with for the past four years.”

Elizabeth scoffed.

“Yeah, at least this time the enemy admits what it’s doing.”

Garrus chuckled, Elizabeth continued.

“It’s bad enough we’re having to fight the Reapers, but now Cerberus too at every turn? I was just fine when we were just fighting the giant death machines, no need to add the power-hungry morally decrepit terrorist group.”

Garrus raised a brow plate, his mandibles flaring in a small grin as his voice became seeped in a trademark brank of sarcasm which was uniquely his.

“If I didn’t know better, Liz, I’d say you were scared.”

Elizabeth laughed, rolling her eyes as she smiled slightly, the familiarity and comfortability of her and Garrus’ constant raport a welcome relief after the stress and worry of the past day.

“How could I be, with Turians who can make shots without looking and a crazy Salarian scientist on board.”

Garrus laughed again, a low, slow bubble of mild humor which made Elizabeth smile further.

“It is good to see him, isn’t it? Wrex too. We’re getting the old team together, slowly but surely.

“What, team Normandy? Half of them never even worked together, I’m amazed Wrex and Mordin even know each other.”

Garrus angled his head downwards, looking Elizabeth directly in the eye as he spoke, his voice intensely directed at her, neither cheerful nor sarcastic nor even pessimistic but rather just delivered with a directness and concentration of intent which drove his point home.

“They all worked under you, Liz, that’s enough.”

The silence afterwards was poignant while Elizabeth considered Garrus’ statement, her mind rushing through the roster of her “Team Normandy”, imagining more efficient combat teams and new interactions which were inevitable were her past two crews united. While she was aware that she had already taken crews on two tasks of large significance, Elizabeth had never considered herself the type of soldier who developed teams around their personalities, whose ships and commands became more institutions than military assets. The N7 within her took her accomplishments as, if not for granted than certainly merely impressive, months of training to handle volatile missions routinely discounting to some degree the immensity of them. In her mind she was simply a soldier, a well-trained and accomplished one, but still not the public icon and hero which she seemed to represent to the rest of the galaxy. The idea of having a “Team Normandy” built from people of disparate backgrounds and almost diametrically opposed personalities, which was seen as an institution of excellence and accomplishment by both her superiors and the rest of the galaxy, still remained fairly foreign to her.

Eventually, Garrus cleared his throat.

So, I hear we’re headed to the Citadel?”

Elizabeth nodded tentatively, her mind still thinking of Garrus’ comment, pushing off of the locker and turning to walk towards the elevator. Garrus followed suit, staying always to Shepard’s right, years in a society rife with structure and rank as well as service in both the Turian military and C-Sec driving him to a perfect subordinate position.

“Yes. I got a message from Ash saying she needed to see me, as well as Miranda and a Salarian Spectre. Oh, and a few crew exchanges, they want to give us some more war-room staff.”

Garrus nodded as the elevator slid into position exceedingly slowly, the door lifting with equal unhurriedness, both he and Elizabeth stepping under it, ducking their heads, before it was completely open.

“Sounds like the Citadel’s going to be our home port then.”

“That’s the intention.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My chapters will probably be getting a lot shorter, just because of time. Hopefully they'll come more often, though. 
> 
> Sorry for the ridiculous fluffiness of this chapter... well, not really, but we'll see if I can't write some actual plot here soon, you know, some meat. 
> 
> Oh, and if you're not following me on tumblr, you should:
> 
> http://strainofthestress.tumblr.com/
> 
> Hope you liked it, and feel free to comment, I love hearing what you have to say (even, almost especially, if it's criticism)


	4. Ch. 4 - Honor and Spite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Garrus finds Shepard at the bar, the two deal with the horror of casualties in this war.

Purgatory, 1300 Hours

Shepard didn’t look at the person sitting next to her, instead swilling her drink around – _nonalcoholic, damn regulations. It might be good for my brain, but honestly, some whisky burn might be a welcome thing right about now –_ speaking in her gruff “don’t bother me” at the clearly male form to her left.

“Listen, bud, not interested. I’m sure you’re a nice guy and all, but I’ve got a good thing going and I’m sure as hell willing to deck you if you keep pushing it.”

The small speech had been given to every individual, male or female, who came to sit next to her, and the seats besides her were likewise empty. Progress had been made in the past 150 years, gender acceptance and equality had progressed greatly, but as if to explain why there were still strip clubs on the lower wards, it was still an accepted truth that being hit on in a bar was as unpleasant as ever. And at the moment, Shepard did not have the patience to deal with unpleasantness.

The individual sitting next to her stood, or rather sat, his ground, gesturing at the bartender who had been cowering in a back corner for a drink, a tall purple glass soon set down next to him. Shepard glared at him, though never turned her head, raising the glass up to take a swig of the non-alcoholic “whisky” (though Shepard cringed to even call it that), before setting it down and gruffly continuing.

“Look, pal, I appreciate determination. Goodness knows I understand. But now is not the time. I’ve had a long day, long couple of days. More than couple. And frankly, you keep sitting there, I’m liable to let some of those “long days” come out through my fists. Which will likely result in your ass becoming extremely well acquainted with the floor. So why don’t you just stand up and mosey on out of here, before I treat your face like a piñata?”

The individual next to her laughed dryly, raising the glass to his mouth and taking a long pull from it before setting it down slightly aggressively on the table in front of him before speaking in a tone that fairly matched Shepard’s, his gaze fixed on the bottles which were in view of the bar, or rather beyond them.

“That’s unlikely, hun. I hate to tell you, but I’m on of the best hand-to-hand specialists you will ever see. So, for how much I’m sure you’d like to make the introductions, my ass will not be getting friendly with the floor. Not today.”

As soon as the individual began to speak, Elizabeth’s head snapped to look at him quickly, a small smirk coming to her face as she was greeted first by the all-too-familiar visor, then the blue stripe across his features. The one thing that was missing, that concerned Shepard arguably the most for its absence, was a trademark sarcastic grin.

Garrus continued, taking another sip from his certainly _very_ alcoholic drink (if Elizabeth’s sense of smell had anything to say about it) before continuing, still staring a thousand kilometers in front of him.

“Now, seeing as we’ve established that no faces will become… piñatas, whatever those are; how about we interact like decent goddamned sentient beings and talk? That too much to ask?”

Shepard frowned as she heard the almost palpable bitterness and injury in Garrus’ voice, his sarcasm at the end cutting, malicious, a far cry from his typical good-natured self. She finished her drink, setting it down for the terrified bartender to tend, putting her right hand on Garrus’ left which was clutching his drink, his right hand clenched in a tight fist. Her voice was soft, tender, caring, the tone which was reserved mostly for him, and him alone.

“Alright, I think I can play by those rules. Anything in particular you want to talk about?”

Garrus shook his head, his eyes never leaving their focal point in front of him, his mandibles wrapping tight around his jaw like a blanket around a terrified child. Beneath his voice, Elizabeth could hear his grief, the pining quality of his subharmonics hard to miss even for a human like her, a combination of terror, rage, and despair all echoing through his chest.

“No, Liz. And I’m not angry with you, please don’t think that. I just…”

Elizabeth began to run her thumb up and down Garrus’ talon, his hand turning to take hers, gripping her four fingers against his palm as she continued to stroke her thumb up and down across his hand. Her brow furrowed with concern, each line telling a possible story, trying to guess at what horror he had just endured.

“You were back in the waiting area again, weren’t you?”

Garrus mutely nodded, raising his glass to take another deep pull from it. His subharmonics were now sounding even when his primary voice could not be heard, a high-pitched terrible pining call, a small outlet of the hopeless winds which were racing through his heart. True to his stoic culture, he pulled his mandibles tight against his face and remained silent instead of risk his emotion coming even more clearly through his primary voice, his eyes sinking further into his face as he tried to hold back any further expressions of emotion.

Elizabeth inhaled slowly through her nose, shutting her eyes gently and nodding as images of injured soldiers and crying friends, of bloodied cots and defeated surgeons and rows upon rows upon rows of blue bags, little soldier-sized lumps for little soldier-sized bodies that used to be little soldiers flashed in front of her eyes. Her voice was soft, hollow, devoid of passion for fear that it would consume her statement, commandeer her voice and mind.

“It was bad tonight?”

Garrus shut his eyes, the mild motion of his head resembling a nod though it seemed to minute to even be noticed by all but the most experienced observer. Elizabeth gripped his hand harder, Garrus returning the gesture as his voice sounded, lowly, softly, tentatively.

“There’s just… nothing left, Liz. I told you how bad our casualties are, but that doesn’t do it justice. It’s bad enough how many we’re losing in the field, but the ones that make it back here… Shepard, they don’t stand a chance. Some of them are fine physically, sure. But the nightmares, the terrors, jumping at every loud noise? It’s never going to stop for them. They’re being decimated, inside and out.”

As Garrus finished speaking a particularly drunk Alliance marine ran into the bar to Elizabeth’s  right, just barely catching the edge with hastily placed hands, turning himself over so that his back was against the bar. He turned to look at Shepard, raising a hand to render an apology before his inebriated eyes caught a sight of Shepard’s uniform, the gold bars bringing him to an immediate, if not swaying salute. Shepard brought her hand up, touching her temple and snapping her hand a few centimeters forwards, the Marine taking the signal for what it was and cutting his salute, running to join his friends on the floor again. Both Garrus and Shepard watched the marine re-join his friends, the four joking as three Turian Marines came and introduced themselves, the group becoming the fast friends of war which were so common, arms thrown around backs as they walked away. Garrus took another drink before continuing.

“I mean, look at them Liz. They don’t know what they’re getting into. Even if they’ve seen some action, it’s still just glory and metals, a chance to say they helped save the galaxy. There’s a thousand more like them down in that waiting area, and millions more lying dead at the foot of some reaper. We’re killing them, Shepard. They’re all just… dying. Some physically. Some come home and they’re just empty, hollowed out inside. I don’t… how do you cope with that?”

Garrus pulled his glass up to take another drink but paused before the liquid touched his lips, his nose twitching slightly. Elizabeth watched with intense concern as Garrus’ pupils dilated, his glass dropped onto the counter and spilling before he pushed himself away, jumping back a meter before bolting towards the door.

Elizabeth threw a small reassuring hand at the bartender before following Garrus, the Turians’ body responding to stress by preparing for primordial combat, his strides longer and stronger, even Shepard’s enhanced spring insufficient to catch up to him. By the time she left the door she found him leaning on the railing that over-looked the rest of the citadel, his eyes closed, taking deep breaths in through his nose of the filtered air. Shepard stopped running three meters away, approaching slowly and quietly, eventually coming to Garrus’ right side, leaning against the railing next to him and looking out onto the wards beneath them. After a few moments, Garrus spoke, softly, his voice clearly embarrassed, though no less distressed.

“Alcohol in my drink, smelled too much like the antiseptic. I… I had to get out of there. Fresh air.”

Elizabeth nodded as she listened, moving closer to Garrus. She placed her left arm around his hip, pulling him closer to her as he placed his right arm over her shoulder, gripping her tightly, almost desperately. Shepard breathed deeply, absorbing the Turian’s unique scent while she collected her thoughts, eventually speaking slowly, methodically, each word and syllable carefully considered.

“Gar… I wish there were something I could do to help, something I could say to even just make it a little better. But you and I both know that the only way to help is to win this damned thing. Win it, and earn all the injured soldiers a chance to heal, make sure that our kids don’t have to deal with, see, this. That the kids of those broken men and women in the holding docks only know war as a story. And we will. Dammit, if I have to kill every husk and cannibal with my bare hands we will. But until then…”

She grasped his waist tighter to reassure him, the gesture reciprocated by his arm as she felt his arm plate dig into her shoulder, though the mild pain was not unwelcome. Slowly, Shepard continued.

“When I was… when I was on Akuze, after the first day, after my squad was… well…  the Alliance finally showed up with a little bit of back-up. Most of them were soldiers, sent to shore up the lines, but there was a medical team with them too. They set up a little field hospital, in the center of the colony, right where the shopping square had been. Eventually, one of the Marines came and took me” Shepard laughed dryly, ghosts dancing in her eyes as bloody hands and broken rifles flashed in front of them. “They had to literally tear me from the wall, I was so… scared, I guess. They finally got me to the medical camp, got me in to see a doctor for some of my wounds. While I was there, I heard, saw… all of them. All of the civilians who had survived were injured, and they had all been brought there. And… god, Gar, I can still hear some of them. I mean, just twelve hours before, their biggest concerns were what they were going to eat for dinner, but now they were… mangled. Destroyed.”

Tears began to fall softly down Elizabeth’s face as she spoke, her gaze still distant, seeing far past the immediate surroundings into horrors which plagued her almost every night, her hands shaking as adrenaline shot through her body, a tightened grip from Garrus just barely keeping her grounded as she told her story. She laughed, dryly, bitterly, as she brought a hand up to dry her face, the tears coming more steadily, her breaths coming further in gasps and her voice getting softer, lower.

“God, Garrus, I was so dead when they brought me in, it had been thirty hours since the first attack, I was… practically delirious. And then I see all those people, children, elderly, civilians who were never supposed to see that kind of… hell, lying around, injured, not enough pain killer to go around? It broke me. I just collapsed. Right there. They had to carry me over to my rack, I had… I shut down.”

By now Elizabeth’s breaths were coming in earnest gasps, her voice so soft that even Garrus’ superior hearing was struggling to hear her over the ambient noise of the constantly busy station. Tears flowed unabashedly down her face, dripping onto the railing beneath her as she struggled to continue, Garrus rubbing her arm as she brought her left arm up across her body to hold his hand.

“When they finally got me to my rack, I looked to my left and saw this teenage kid. Couldn’t have been older than 15, his left arm bandaged, acid by the smell of it. He was one of the more… intact, ones, so he didn’t get painkillers, god he looked like he hurt. When I laid down, he looked over at me and just started talking. I’ll never forget what he said: ‘Don’t let this break you. Fight in honor of this, not in spite of it.’ I don’t know where the hell a 15-year-old gets something like that, but he did. I nodded and he smiled… and then his machine went flat. Within minutes he was… gone.”

Elizabeth turned, looking Garrus directly in the eye as she felt the strength return to her voice, the tears slow and passion return, the ghosts retreating before the will she brought to bear on the fight she was in. She took both of his hands in hers, the distance between them small enough for the electric current fo her formidable will and incredible determination to jump from her heart to his through her voice.

“So, Gar, just like he said to me: Don’t let it break you. Fight in honor of them. Not in spite of.”

Garrus nodded, turning away for a second before bringing his forehead forwards, touching it gently, lovingly to Elizabeth’s as she regained control of her breathing. They stayed like that for moments, but it felt like eternities for both of them, the single point of contact so precious, so significant, an anchor in the storm they were weathering. Softly, Garrus began to speak.

“This isn’t going to break me, Shepard. They’ll be the names on our lips as we beat these bastards back into hell. And… thank-you. I don’t say it often, because, well probably because we know how skilled I am at romantic gestures, but I love you Liz. Don’t let anybody else know but I need you. So, just… Thank-you.”

Elizabeth angled her head forwards her lips coming into soft and equally tender contact with Garrus’ face plates, a soft smile playing over both of their faces as she did so,  their faces breaking away after a few heartbeats for them to look into each-other’s eyes.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

Garrus laughed, turning to head back into the bar, his good humor returning quickly after Shepard’s story. While they did not occur commonly, the occasional bout of depressive hopelessness tore through Garrus rabidly, but quickly. Turian physiology was not pre-disposed to sustained emotional stress: the response to such an unsustainable increase in physical ability to react to whatever ancient threat was inducing such a feeling, and thus the stress disappearing as quickly as the body began recovery from such a near-pyrrhic response. Thus, Garrus’ good humor and sarcasm returned quickly, though the undertone of the previous moments remained.

“Hell, Liz, you can tell anybody you want. Just not Wrex. He’d never let me live it down.”

“Don’t want a Krogan warlord giving you crap for having a girlfriend, Vakarian?”

The two walked through the doors, making their way back to their seats in the upper bar, Shepard nodding slightly at Aria as she passed. The bartender had replaced both of their glasses and smiled delicately at them as they sat down, retreating back to his corner and becoming monumentally interested in the glass he was polishing.

“No, I just don’t want to have to follow Turian Honor when he does make a comment.”

“Don’t tell me you’d have to cut his quad off and feed it to him for insulting my waist or hair or something?”

Garrus chuckled, taking a swig of his drink, his nose twitching slightly but not enough so to cause him to run to the fresh air as previously.

“Now there’s an idea. I might just try that anyways.”

Elizabeth’s laugh chortled out of her throat lightly as she patted the side of Garrus’ arm, her head resting softly and momentarily on his shoulder pad. The two took another drink before turning around to watch the Turian and Alliance Marines who were still dancing, Garrus beginning to take bets on who would pass out first. Shepard bet, and lost as usual, but to see the smile on Garrus’ face that looked almost like unfiltered mirth, almost like earnest happiness, she would lose any bet she had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that got a little feels-y, so sorry for that. Arguably not the most feels I’ve yet written, but I really wanted to keep playing around with the idea of how Shepard and Garrus deal with the emotional drain of the war, and how they do so together. I’m still not certain how well I’ve nailed down Garrus’ voice, especially during more earnest moments. His sarcasm is pretty easy, but his more emotional dialogue seems harder to master. So, if you think I’m doing poorly or well, let me know, I LOVE feedback, both positive and negative (comments especially are appreciated). 
> 
> Again, this had to be done separate to her play-through, so there’s not a whole lot of plot going on here. I think my game is working now, though, so that should change next chapter. And sorry for the wait, those of you who do not follow me on tumblr (which you should: http://strainofthestress.tumblr.com/) haven’t heard: I have been running a new student orientation for the past week until Saturday, and then moving into my new apartment from Saturday to today, so there has been little-no time for writing. But, I’m all settled in, and will hopefully be back on track.
> 
> Either way, enjoy, and let me know what you think!
> 
> SotS


	5. Ch. 5 - The Nap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paperwork claims another victim

Normandy Deck 1, 2225 Hours

Elizabeth blinked her eyes slowly against the harsh light, squinting through the glare which was thrown into her gaze, raising a hand against the merciless metal surroundings.

_Oh god, my neck. It hasn’t felt like this since the last time I… Oh no. I didn’t…_

Shepard pulled her head up, her eyes looking down as far as they could, her face forming quickly into a mask of mild disappointment and exasperation as she was greeted by the orange screen of a datapad, a huff of breath exiting through her nose and blowing wisps of loose blond hair away from her face.

_Dammit, I did…But, then why did I wake up? Unless…_

“Morning there, Shepard.”

Elizabeth’s eyes moved slowly to the side, her head turning slightly as she met the dreaded but welcome cerulean glare of Garrus, the Turian sitting casually against the desk with a fusion of trademark swaggering self-satisfaction and genuine concern. Liz grumbled at him, the noise a perfect aural representation of exasperated exhaustion. Garrus, frustratingly, only laughed in response.

Shepard pushed herself up off the table, the front smoother portions of her uniform peeling off the cool metal surface, lines left on the left side of her face from where the datapads had fell. She brought her hands quickly to her face and moved them outwards, scrubbing the residual fatigue and protesting sleep from her eyes before looking around, scanning the room for any unusual changes. Her hands made hard contact with the table top, more out of an unwillingness to exert any effort to do otherwise than anger or frustration, and she inhaled deeply through her mouth and exhaled through her nose.

“I got you coffee, if you’d like.”

A steaming cup of black liquid found its way in front of her, “CMDR SHEPARD” printed in the same lettering as on the side of the ship underneath the ship’s Seal, a stark blue background with a silhouette of the Normandy flying upwards in stark white, four contrails coming off the engines, “Stand Strong, Stand Together” written across the top in white letters, “In war, victory” written along the bottom in red. Without looking, Elizabeth grabbed the cup from Garrus, bringing it up to her face furtively, inhaling deeply as she let the dark smell envelop her.

Garrus moved next to her, their shoulders rubbing as he reached out and picked up the datapads that she had fallen asleep on, his eyes darting back and forth as he read over what was on them, talons tapping a few times at the interface.

Liz took a small sip of her coffee, the bitter and complex taste rushing at her mouth and charging away all the sleep before she looked over to Garrus, standing next to him and resting her chin on his left shoulder as she looked down at the datapads to watch what he was doing.

“Did I do anything too bad to them?”

Her voice was still small, laden with abandoned dreams and much-needed rest, her eyes still moving slowly within her head as she willed them to read.

“Nothing too bad, though I would have loved to see the look on Hackett’s face when he got this one with five paragraphs of random characters.”

Shepard dropped a few dry laughs from her mouth before she sat up from Garrus’ shoulder, taking another sip of coffee as she took the datapad from him and looked it over, her chest shaking with a few small chuckles as she saw the paragraphs he was speaking of.

“But, Vakarian, this is obviously just an ingenious military code. I had to cover it with my face so that you couldn’t track what I was saying.”

Garrus stopped looking at the datapad he had in his hand to turn his head towards Elizabeth, his left eyebrow plate lifting as his mandibles flared with a grin so singularly his that he practically invented it.

“Next we’re going to be saying your dancing is actually a secret series of signals? Designed to look like bad dancing you’ve actually been relaying top military secrets?”

The coffee cup came to rest on the table as Shepard closed her eyes hard and breathed out heavily through the “O” that her lips had formed, flicking her head to squint at Garrus through partially closed eyes.

“That’s a low blow, Vakarian.”

“First rule of sniping, if you have a shot, take it.”

Shepard’s face hardened immediately, her eyes freezing into steel and her face hardening into a mask. Deliverately, let go of her coffee, turning to face Garrus further as his face moved quickly through confusion straight into fear as he raced to figure out what he had said, what had gone wrong.

“Garrus, there’s another battlefield rule that I’m not certain if you’re aware of.”

The Commander’s voice cut like a cold knife through Garrus, another twinge of fear rushing through his gut as he swallowed slowly, struggling to maintain control over his subharmonics which were forcing their way out of his throat in a combination of hopeless fear, attempted reconciliation, and deep guilt.

“What’s that?”

For how much he tried, Garrus’ voice lacked its usual stability, the tone higher than usual, wavering slightly as he spoke. Shepard’s eyes thinned as she squinted further at Garrus, her gaze raking him up and down in the same way she looked at a target, another spark of fear finally igniting a fire of adrenaline in his stomach.

“Use your enemy’s weaknesses against them.”

As Elizabeth’s hands shot forwards Garrus understood what she meant, and began to protest as her nimble fingers found their ways to the soft spots in-between his armor, poking at his soft abdomen and moving across it in a practiced set of torturous movements. Garrus immediately crumpled down to the floor, his weight dropping as he erupted in surprised but not unwelcome laughter, Shepard’s fingers giving no inch in response. Within seconds Garrus was gasping for breath as he laughed harder and writhed, Elizabeth’s face erupting into a gigantic grin as she continued to tickle Garrus mercilessly, her legs on either side of his torso and her hands playing against his abdomens with a speed and dexterity which Turians’ predatory talons could never achieve.

“Shepard… Liz… Dammit… Stop… Breathe… Need… Come on…”

Shepard laughed maniacally as she sat on top of Garrus, her barrage continuing as she grinned down at the writhing Turian, speaking over his two-toned laugh.

“Do you concede?”

“Concede… Concede what?”

“That my dancing isn’t terrible.”

Within seconds Elizabeth felt a pair of talons grab her back and the weight underneath her shift as Garrus grabbed her and swung her to the ground, a hand behind her head as he ended up on top of her, his breath heavy through his grinning mouth.

“That’s the thing about hand-to-hand specialists, Shepard: we don’t have to concede.”

Shepard laughed, grinning up at Garrus as her legs came up from behind, gripping around his arms and pulling him down as she swung herself on top of him again, his arms pinned behind his back against the ground by her arms as she laughed, bringing her face close to Garrus’ as she spoke.

“That’s right, Garrus, _we_ don’t.”

Garrus chuckled and brought his mouth upwards the two centimeters to meet Shepard’s lips, his plates incapable of puckering but the gesture a nonetheless endearing imitation of a human kiss. As he pulled away Elizabeth smiled warmly, lovingly down at him and returned the gesture before getting up, offering an arm to him and pulling him up as she sat down in her chair, rotating to face Garrus. As he leaned against the desk, the static equivalent of a saunter, he spoke, his voice laden with not only curiosity but also caring concern.

“What were you working on that put you to sleep so thoroughly, anyways?”

Elizabeth shook her head gently from side to side, eyes closed, as she laughed dryly through her nose, her hand finding her coffee cup again. She took a sip from her drink before she re-opened her eyes, fixing Garrus with a stare that wacomposed of concentrated exasperation.

“I think I was working on the mission report from Utukku when I finally caved. Apparently the alliance mission report forms were never designed with sentient insects in mind…”

As she finished Shepard offered Garrus the mission report, the Turian taking it and scanning it as she continued, her sentances interrupted by intermittent sips of coffee.

“Before that, there were the letters to the Salarians, putting out Krogan-cure fires; progress reports to the Alliance Engineering Corps, requests for support to the Asari, Elcor condolence statements, requisition orders, and some commendation awards for the crew.”

Garrus nodded as he fixed Elizabeth with a piercing stare, his eyes seeing more of her story than his ears heard as he regarded the dark spots underneath the eyes and the slightly sluggish movements of her eyes within her head. He didn’t need to see the used coffee filters which had gone down the garbage chute or the five energy-bar wrappers which adorned the stateroom to know that she was working herself to exhaustion. The collector mission had taken Shepard to the brink, emotional stress notwithstanding, as she gambled the galaxy that she could keep a crew of disparate, deadly misfits alive through the riskiest mission imaginable, but this was an entirely different level. This time, she was pushing herself not as a singular effort supported from afar, but as the tip of the spear, thrust forwards by the shaft of expectations and support which the Alliance had built behind her. She was placed at the point and told to lead from the front, but Garrus knew there were times when she was not leading but being forced ahead.

“Liz, when’s the last time you slept? It’s been 34 hours since we got back from Utukku, have you slept at all since then?”

Elizabeth was caught half-way through a sip of coffee which she quickly finished before becoming monumentally interested in the other datapads which occupied the desk, her cheeks gaining a shade of red. Garrus lowered his head, his glare becoming incisive, Shepard looking slightly further the other direction in response.

“Liz…”

Garrus was greeted this time with some furtive shuffling of components on her desk, but no actual response.

“What about eaten? Have you had anything besides those energy bars and a cup of coffee since we returned? Have you even…”

The voice that interrupted Garrus was not full-volume, but it was certainly elevated. Elizabeth had snapped her head to look at Garrus, her hands held frustratingly open above the desk as if begging the galaxy for a relief or advice, her eyes wide and almost manic. Her voice was almost shrill, louder than normal, more brittle and worn about the edges as she interrupted.

“No, Garrus, I haven’t. I haven’t eaten, haven’t showered, I haven’t even left this damned room since we got back. I’ve just been sitting here, filling out form after form, to diplomat after dignitary when there’s a crew, hell a galaxy, out there that needs leadership.”

Garrus’ face had remained implacid during Shepard’s outbreak, short lived as it was. As she finished she found herself breathing heavily before she dropped her gaze from Garrus’, closing her eyes and turning her head back towards the desk, her hands closing slowly and resting on the desk.

“You need to take care of yourself, Liz. Take a break, go talk to the crew, get some food.”

Liz shook her head, opening her eyes as she pulled a datapad infront of her, reading the information over before giving it a few taps.

“I can’t. Trust me, I would have if I could, but I’ve got too much to do…”

“Liz.”

“…for all these different people, and I’ve still got at least three hours of paperwork that needs to be done. Besides, if I just…”

“Liz…”

“… a few times then I should be able to stay awake at least until I finish…”

The office chair was rotated quickly until Elizabeth found herself with a Turian’s face centimeters from hers, intense alien eyes bearing heavily on hers.

“Liz. No. You can do this later, you need a break. Go take a nap.”

A battle of wills was taking place between the two intense stares, control hanging on a blink, a flinch, a shrug, all of which Shepard eventually gave.

“Fine. But I need to be up in half an hour.”

“I won’t let you sleep longer.”

Shepard stood up, walking towards the bed as she stretched her legs, her knees making contact with the mattress earlier than she thought and her torso falling quickly onto the soft surface. For how much she might have willed herself to change her position, to find a normal sleeping spot, she instead fell asleep within three seconds where she fell.

Normandy Deck 1, 2415

“Garrus Vakarian!”

Garrus flinched as he heard the angered call from the bed, an awake and very frustrated Shepard jumping out of bed and stomping up the stairs to stand before Garrus, hands placed on her hips in her “Commander” pose.

“I told you to wake me after half an hour! It’s been two now!”

Garrus took his feet off from the desk where he had crossed them, setting the datapad near where they had rested as he folded his hands in his lap, turning to face Elizabeth. Her responses were still hostile, hot, spat out of her  mouth with the force of betrayed responsibility; Garrus’ response calm and implacid, giving no inch nor hint of resentful anger at her tone.

“Did you sleep well?”

“Why didn’t you wake me?!”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Fine. Yes. I did sleep well. But why didn’t you wake me?”

“I took care of all of it.”

Shepard paused with her mouth open, ready to fire another retort as she heard what Garrus had said, her brow coming together and her head angling as three datapads found their way into her hands, Garrus speaking as she looked over them.

“I know you still have to sign them, and the phraseology might not be quite what you would use, but I took care of the majority of the work.”

Silence ruled the room for more than a few moments while Shepard read and tried to believe what she had just been told, her mouth opening and closing three more times.

“Garrus…. I… thank-you.”

Garrus stood up, bringing Elizabeth into a hug as he spoke, the vibration from his voice felt through both of their torsos.

“Don’t thank me. I was just taking care of you. It’s what we do, you and me: take care of each other.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t thank-you. Just take it?”

“Never.”

He brought his forehead to hers as he spoke, smiling at her as she smiled back. Their voices were quiet, intensely earnest, filling the small space between them with a fondness and love with was held uniquely theirs, a secret never to be found by the galaxy but enjoyed only by them.

“You’re too good for me, Vakarian.”

“No such thing, Shepard. I may be the better shot, but I will never be good enough for you, I’ll just keep trying to be.”

Shepard’s head angled downwards, bringing her mouth into contact with his, a small contact infused with such affection as left both constantly pleasantly surprised.

“I say you are, and that’s good enough for me.”

“Well… that might be good enough for me.”

“It better be, big guy. Because you’re stuck with me.”

Garrus paused slightly before he responded, the last sentence ringing through his brain as he thought about its implications, its intentions. He doubted Elizabeth noted as she rested her head across his chest, but long nights of hopelessly optimistic dreams and plans came flooding to the front of his mind, best-case-scenarios shamelessly constructed without any acknowledgement of the possibility of failure, futures planned without alternatives. There were thousands of plans in his head, most considered the worst, the most things gone wrong summed up in a signle cataclysmic prediction, but this was the one that wasn’t. The quiet nights with her breathing besides him or the late-morning smile in the beam of a golden sun, the house out from under the shadow of galactic slaughter and the walks without sidearms or evac plans all summed up to a signle, monumental hope he had held closer to his heart than anything else, a single eventuality which he hoped beyond hope would be the only eventuality and dared not consider it coulnd’t be. Eventually, his brain pulled itself from reverie and made a response.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Elizabeth nodded into his chest, planting a kiss on his nose (for which she had to pull him down by his cowl) before walking off, straightening her pony-tail in the head mirror. From inside the small room he heard her call out.

“You want a midnight snack?”

Garrus chuckled, gesturing for her to take the lead as Shepard left the head answering behind her.

“With you? Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I haven’t updated in a while. I’m kind of sorry for that. The school year has started up for me, and as my life gets more interesting I find myself with less time to write. Regardless, do not expect me to abandon this. I enjoy it very much, and will see this story to conclusion. Updates may be slow, but we’ll get to the end. Besides, this was so fluffy, how could I say no to writing more of this?
> 
> Not certain how I feel about the quality of this, I was tired and a little bit out of practice, so while I like to think it was pretty decent I'm really not certain. As always, feedback, suggestions, comments (oh god do I love comments, seriously guys) are always welcome and encouraged!
> 
> Also, come follow me on Tumblr, I'm under the same name as here: 
> 
> strain of the stress.tumblr.com
> 
> I just revamped my blog, so it's real lonely, so come make it a party!


	6. Ch.6 - The Shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and Garrus deal with some of the personal repercussions of the Turian Bomb.

Normandy Crew Deck, 1300 Hours

“How did we not catch this before?”

“Garrus, I’m going to need you to step back.”

“How did this not show up? We checked after the mission, just like always…”

“Garrus.”

“Dammit, this is my fault. I checked her, I should have been more careful, I…”

“GARRUS VAKARIAN STAND DOWN THIS INSTANT!”

The hard voice of doctor Chakwas rang throughout the cavernous mess deck as the medical team carried The Commander into the medical bay, soft beeps and rushed murmers sounding from the rolling gurney, the abdomen of her armor and soft-suit cut away to reveal a bleeding bullet wound. Garrus was standing behind, watching with desperately helpless eyes as Elizabeth, mumbling gibberish as the painkillers kicked in, was rolled away from him, through the doors to the medical bay and out of his view. The Doctor was standing in front of him, her eyes steel and her face even harder, determination oozing from her as she prepared to save the savior once again. As Chakwas yelled Garrus stopped in his tracks, broken from his stare by the woman in front of him.

“Now, Garrus. It is entirely possible that the wound was held in place by the pressure of her hardsuit and little blood emerged, I don’t know. What I do know is that, currently, The Commander needs my immediate and full attention, which cannot be given while I am busy stopping you from trying to will her back. Do I make myself clear?”

With defeated eyes Garrus shrunk before Chakwas, his shoulders hunching over as his mind began to construct scenario after scenario after scenario, images of empty beds and lonely plaques, grey headstones in mute with broken hearts fleeting across his eyes.

“Yes, doctor.”

“Good.”

Doctor Chakwas responded curtly, turning on her heel to walk directly into the medical bay, opening the now-locked doors with a swipe of her omnitool, the doors opening to the sound of the nurses describing the situation to her, their voices strained but professional. As the windows into the medical bay became opaque, Garrus dragged his feet from their positions, throwing his heavy weight into a chair on the deck, staring at a perpetual 45 degree angle downwards, his eyes empty and his hands shaking.

He started to consider the past few hours in his head, a detective’s mind running through the events with practiced mnemonic precision. He ran through the last minutes of their mission on Tuchanka, watching the explosion erupt from the cavernous hole that spelled the relative safety of their alliance and the death of a good soldier. Saw the grim looks and tangible silence as the shuttle appeared in the hazy sky, swooping down to take them back. He heard the conversations on the shuttle, the allusions to Kaidan and questions about the solidity of the alliance, the post-mission puncture-check before docking with the Normandy. But most of all, he remembered the look of shock on Elizabeth’s face when her hand came away from unfastening her armor covered in scarlet blood, the horrid sound as her face went pale and she crumpled to the ground, limbs thudding on the deck with the sound of death waiting. He saw, in vivid detail, the astonishment as Vega stood and watched while he put pressure on the wound, the crimson blood flowing over his hands to pool on the deck plate, too big, getting bigger; the frantic steps of the medical team leaving the elevator to collect The Commander, the strain in their ever-professional demeanor as they carried the woman they had all rested their hopes and dreams on to her trial by mortality.

As Garrus’ mind crystalized the memories, solidifying the events into a far-from-tidy package, his imagination began to work, thrusting him forwards into a future he never wanted, but that was all too-familiar. He saw a casket being lowered, a line of rifles firing in unison, speeches trying clumsily for meaning when words were too insufficient. He saw friends drifting away, crew-members wandering lost as the words “If Shepard were here” echo through his ears and carry his grief into the realm of longing. He saw a memorial, small but dignified, on The Citadel, an inscription from Admiral Anderson beneath a silver Alliance insignia, a single Turian with a single coin standing before it…

“Garrus?”

Vega stood above Garrus, his armor removed such that The Marine was only in his under-suit now, the lines of the plates outlined in dust against the woven-black background. Garrus was woken from his reverie, inhaling sharply as he heard his name and looking up with tired eyes to see the ultimate worry that was etched on the young man’s face. Vega gestured to the chair across from Garrus, to which the Turian nodded, the large Marine sitting down and hunching his shoulders in such a way that made him look smaller than Garrus had ever seen him. When he spoke, Vega’s voice was higher, more brittle, wrought with worry and peppered with guilt as he stared in front of him with eyes that were empty in a similar fashion, though not magnitude, to Garrus’.

 “She go in a few minutes ago?”

“Yeah.”

Vega shook his head, closing his eyes and slapping his thigh before he stood up, pacing nervously around the area.

“Damn. How the hell didn’t we see that, man? I mean, she got freaking shot! You’d think we’d notice that.”

The response came on an empty voice, almost devoid of emotion in an aural apathy necessitated more by overwhelming feeling than any lack thereof.

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, we did the post-op check and everything. She never even mentioned getting shot. How do you get shot, and not know it? I can understand the benefits of pure adrenaline, don’t get me wrong, but not noticing a bullet inside you? That’s a little loco.”

“It is.”

The room grew silent as Vega’s pacing stopped, the man turning to look at Garrus as he did so, seeing the empty eyes and the strained fists. He stuck his hand out, walking over to stand abreast of Garrus, putting his right hand on his friend’s left shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze and shaking Garrus slightly as he did so. It was a gesture of men who had fought together, of deep camaraderie and quickly following friendship, of shared worry for a good friend and commander, and empathetic panic for a loved one.

“I’m sure she’ll make it through it. She’s strong, tougher than you or me. And I’ve heard Chakwas is the best, hell, she patched up your face and you’re not even human. She’ll pull through.”

A small, dry smile spread across Garrus’ face as he heard Vega’s words, a slight nod appearing in his neck. When he spoke, his voice carried more inflection, a semblance of personality and feeling creeping back in as hope made itself known amidst the dire images of worse futures.

“Thanks, Lieutenant. You know, as this war drags on I keep losing faith in ‘They’ll make it’, but I appreciate it. Go get some rest, you need it after that mission. I’m just going to stay here.”

Vega retracted his hand, nodding as he walked around, his eyes tracking Garrus’ when they could.

“Alright, but your get yourself some sleep eventually, comprende? You’re not invincible either, and you being tired when she wakes up won’t do her any good.”

“Don’t worry about me, Lieutenant.”

The use of Vega’s formal rank was enough to hurry him out of the room, though Garrus meant it as nothing more than a variation in method of address. As he watched Vega leave, Garrus inhaled deeply through his nose, exhaling deeply through his mouth  as he turned his chair to face the table, his forehead making soft contact with the shockingly, blissfully cold table, the fatigue of the mission and the day sinking in, magnified by his state of emotional distress.

Normandy Crew Deck, 1700 Hours

“Garrus? Garrus, wake-up. There’s someone who wants to see you. Garrus Vakarian.”

When his full name was said Garrus bolted to a sitting position, sitting straight and looking around while he tried to bling the confusion and sleep from his eyes. The mess-deck still looked the same as it had earlier, though there were three crew-men eating a meal on the other side of the table. Doctor Chakwas was standing over Garrus, the bags under her eyes painting pictures of her fatigue that the hope and success twinkling in her eyes refuted and her smile silenced. Garrus’ voice was muffled, swallowed by his throat as the sleep still left his body.

“What was that, doctor?”

“Garrus, The Commander’s awake, we were successful. She’ll make a full recovery in three days, and she’d like to see you now.”

Before the Doctor had even finished her statement Garrus had stood up and ran to the Medical Bay doors, dust shaking off his un-cleaned armor as he did so. The door’s opened too slowly as he tried to force his way through them, stumbling into the medical bay with all the grace of a man who didn’t care about anything but the woman smiling at him from the medical bed.

Shepard’s head was propped up by a pillow and the bed had been angled up so that she sat upright somewhat. Her face was noticeably more pale, her blonde hair seeming to was the remainder of color from it. She smiled and laughed slightly as Garrus burst through the room, the movement followed quickly by a pained expression and her hands moving to her side, gripping the bandage. Garrus ran over to the bedside, looking Shepard over with frantic eyes as stood over her, eventually bringing his forehead down to hers, touching them together with relieved breath and thankful closed eyes. His voice was soft, earnest, full of love and emotion that rarely came out and never needed more than a few words to express, hers slightly hoarse and weak as her body tried to recover.

“Liz… I didn’t…”

“I’m okay, Gar. Doc said I’ll make a full recovery.”

“I thought I’d lost you.”

“It’s gonna take more than this for you to get rid of me.”

Shepard’s hand was squeezed by the talon which had felt it as Garrus shook his head, standing up and looking down at her  with a bittersweet smile that told volumes of how much worry her injury had caused him. Elizabeth responded simply with a small smile, weak almost against her too-pale face, one begging of forgiveness. They stood like that for heartbeats, looking at each other, love flowing openly and thankfully between them, before Shepard reached up and grabbed Garrus’ cowl, pulling the turian down into a deep kiss, affected none by the weakness which plagued her lips. Garrus reciprocated, at least as much as his plates would allow, and when she finally released him, Shepard was the first to speak, her tone changing, the world around flooding back into their little private universe.

“How’s Victus doing after losing his son.”

A small laugh, almost a scoff, came from Garrus before he answered, rubbing his talon over the back of Shepard’s hand.

“If I said that I never left the crew-deck and have no clue, would you be mad at me?”

The smile that spread over Elizabeth’s face was equal parts thankful and loving, and entirely the kind that Garrus loved to see.

“Never.”

Silence permeated the room for a few minutes as the two stayed close, Elizabeth laying down and Garrus standing by her, both enjoying the continued presence of the other which was almost robbed them by a stray bullet, the terrible chances of war almost destroying the small haven they had built between each other with the rupture of a tiny blood vessel. Elizabeth closed her eyes, speaking slowly, matter-of-factly.

“We lost Lieutenant Victus.”

Garrus exhaled, bowing his head slightly as he did so, walking around the medical bay to get Dr. Chakwas’ unused chair, rolling it next to Shepard and sitting down. His voice was equivalently timbred as he stared down at the deck plating between his feet, the last quote of a terrified kid repeating again through his mind, followed shortly by the explosion of a bomb never meant to be found, never meant to be exploded.

“Yes, we did.”

A small rustle caused Garrus to look up as Elizabeth shook her head in bed, her eyes moistening while she did so, her eyes blinking the water away as she spoke, her voice woven with bitterness and disappointment, quiet but intensely filled with it.

“Dammit. God Dammit. How many other soldiers, kids, really, are we going to lose? How long until we’ve spent all the young cleaning up the mistakes of the dead, and there’s nothing left to fight with? How long until there’s nothing left to recover with, even if we do win?”

A hand found Elizabeth’s as she spoke, anger becoming more poignant in her voice as she continued, fear and disappointment and rage and loss all swirling into a tempest of emotion which took control of her tone and raised her volume.

“Liz, don’t talk like that, we’ll…”

Elizabeth interrupted Garrus, savagely, tears now beginning to flow slowly down her face as she spoke, spat at the universe and the hope which she had clung to for so long, scoffed at it.

“No, Garrus, don’t interrupt me. Because, you know what?! It’s probably the first realistic thing I’ve said this entire war! What the hell made me think we could win this thing, when we keep on losing people like Victus, like all the young soldiers on Earth too good to try and run away and all the good Turians on Palaven trying to beat the Reapers back?! What are we doing here, running around trying to play nice with a bunch of stuck-up politicians? The hell is that going to do, when soldiers, kids really, keep on dying by the billions every second we waste out here?”

Tears streamed openly down Elizabeth’s face as she spoke, yelled really, at the universe in anger and frustration, Garrus being unlucky enough to be the nearest sentient being to which she spoke. His face slowly contorted into concern and frustration and pain as Elizabeth spoke, her voice becoming more manic, more panicked, speaking more and more of the desperate nature of the hope which she had been keeping so close to her heart, and which was so fragile in her grasp.

“You know what’s going to happen, Garrus?! There’s not going to be anything left. We’re going to be a bunch of empty races, with all those who are willing to fight dead beneath our own heels as we realize what kinds of hell we sent them to. We’re either going to lose to the Reapers because we threw all the good against them to die young while we sat safely in our little war rooms, or we’re going to win, and there’s not going to be anything to rebuild because there won’t be _anybody_ to rebuild! We’re going to be just like those goddamned husks out there, empty on the inside and shambling along until something decides we’re just too annoying to let continue! Why on earth do we think we can survive this that way?!”

Shepard was left breathing heavily as she finished, her eyes closing and her head dropping as her voice changed timbre suddenly, becoming softer, even more defeated, hopeless.

“What made me think I could survive it that way? Hell, Garrus, enough people act like you’re invincible and pretty soon you start believing them. I almost… I almost forgot that I’m just as fragile as anybody else.” A bitter laugh escaper her lips as her hand massaged her most recent wound, a small grimace appearing on her face. “Maybe I was supposed to die. Maybe you’d all be better off without me fucking everything up by trying to play politician. Maybe I was…”

“NO.”

The voice rang out clearly, aggressively throughout the medical bay, matching Shepard’s previous tirade for intensity and madness but this time focused, directed on a single person, a single individual who looked up at Garrus with eyes startled wide, only to be met by a gaze as hard as blued steel. Garrus continued, his voice hard, controlled but no less direct, the pure intensity of it almost blasting Elizabeth away before she started to become indignant, her own brand of equal intensity pulling fury and passion onto her pale face.

“No, Elizabeth, don’t you dare say that. Because you and I both know it’s not true. Without you, we wouldn’t have even known this was coming, wouldn’t have done anything to prepare. We’d be dead, without you, a thousand times over at this point. And now? Nobody is going to pull these races together the same way you are, there’s nobody else who could handle it. So don’t you dare say that maybe you should have ended up dead, because we both know you’re the last hope we’ve got.”

Elizabeth sat up as she responded, her voice approaching a yell as the tears that fell further down her face burned and stung against her building anger and established desperation.

“Bull shit, Garrus. I am not the last hope we’ve got. Without me, who knows what would be happening? I certainly wouldn’t be keeping a team of the best hopes this galaxy has captive on a warship playing chicken with the Reapers! Wouldn’t be trying to bring two races which have hated each other’s guts for thousands of years together, rather than letting them fight the Reapers on their own terms! Face it Garrus, you’d be better off without me! This bullet was supposed to kill me!”

“I won’t believe that!”

“Why the hell not, the evidence is-“

“Because we need you.”

Elizabeth’s mouth was left open with a response building in her throat as her brain registered Garrus’ words, the turian having walked to the other side of the medical bay and staring at her across the distance with the same intensity as she had heard in his response which stopped her cold. Seizing his opportunity, Garrus continued to speak as he walked back to the seat next to her, sitting down and taking her hand as he spoke, her face still frozen.

“Because, Liz, you’re still the best hope we have. Because you’re the one who can bring two races which have hated each other together, who can unite the galaxy against this threat before it destroys us all. Yes, you are mortal. But just because you got shot doesn’t mean you were supposed to die.”

Elizabeth’s voice was pleading, searching, trying to find an answer amidst the confusion and pain and fear she had felt since she stepped off the shuttle on to The Normandy.

“Then what is it supposed to mean?”

“That you didn’t duck fast enough?”

Elizabeth’s face erupted into a small smile, still tinged with the passion of before but now colored with at least a modicum of good humor as she slapped Garrus on the shoulder, only to a response of his soft laughter. Shepard spoke, softly, her voice calmer, closer to her normal timbre.

“I’m sorry, Gar. I just… Watching Victus die for something like that… it reminded me of who’s paying the price for this war. It’s hard enough fighting a galactic war, it’s even harder knowing I can’t save anybody. And then finding out I got shot, it just…”

“I know, Liz. But you made it, and Victus did what he had to for the rest of us. It’s a sacrifice you or I or anybody on this ship would equally make in his position. There isn’t anything to make the death of a good soldier easier to swallow, but it is better knowing they went for a good cause. Probably the best possible”

Another soft rustling came from the bed as Elizabeth nodded slowly to Garrus’ words, her eyes closed gently. When she spoke, it was soft in volume and tone, resigned in statement but strangely hopeful in delivery.

“We should all be so lucky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, first and foremost, I need to say this: if any of you feel I have mis-represented sustaining a battle-field injury or the aftershock, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. This is a very real calamity for thousands of service men and women, and I would be loathe to insult their sacrifice by misrepresenting it, even in a place as this. 
> 
> Second of all, any feedback you guys have about this story, any comments or suggestions, please tell me! I love getting feedback from readers, and would love to get even more!
> 
> Third of all (shameless self-promotion here): I have a tumblr, http://strainofthestress.tumblr.com/, y'all should come join us over there, it's a fun place, and a little lonely for lack of you!
> 
> Besides, that, just enjoy!
> 
> SotS


	7. Ch. 7 - The Toast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrus and Shepard's short shore leave is interrupted by a personal issue, and they get through it in true Shepard and Vakarian form.

Elizabeth was shocked to see the hotel room was dark as she walked in, the lights having never been turned off for the previous days of their week-long layover at the Citadel. The room hadn’t even been her idea, it had been gifted suddenly by one of the highest-end hotels on the station as a gift by the owner, repayment for saving the station during the Cerberus attack. It was absurd, really, the over-sized stateroom on The Normandy enough to house her, and Garrus, and a few other families with room to spare. But, somehow, through some tactful Turian Cajoling (“Garrus, I can’t feasibly take this.” “Liz, they’re throwing the room at you, there’s no harm in taking it.” “G, the stateroom here is fine. You and I both know that. Let somebody else take it.” “It’s not like there’s a line, Shep.” “Garrus…” “Look, all I’m saying is that if, while you’re saving the galaxy for the third time, some benefits come of it, there’s no harm in taking them.”) she found herself staying there.

The moment they had walked in, the vaulted ceiling and luxurious view of the Citadel arms had reeked of decadence.  Right down to the smell of the shampoo in the carpet. Shepard wanted to pretend like it turned her nose, but she’d be lying if she said a part of her didn’t love the feeling. A large - much too large - part of her. But before the seabags had even been set down the first call from the next desperate situation about their unsolvable issue had lit up both hers and Garrus’ omnitools, and the chaos that was their lives hadn’t stopped. The closest they’d come had been furtive threats of a movie night in passing at the door.

But the lights had stayed on the entire time.

The orange screen of the datapad in her hand cast a ghostly glow on the floor in front of her as she walked slowly into the apartment, the shoes of her dress uniform ghosting over the thick carpet. A soft clatter sounded clearly through the room as she set the pad down on the table by the door.

“Liz.”

Garrus’ voice came softly from the living room, more a statement of fact than a greeting or a question, whispered furtively as a secret to the shadows only. Silence once again overtook the room as Shepard glided over to the couch, the cushions welcoming her with soft exhalations and the leather with quiet creaking as she sat beside Garrus. He was hunched over, elbows resting on his knees, eyes staring distantly, sadly out into the haunting view beyond the window. Silence conquered the room again.

Beyond the window, skycars moved like sparks through a field, following the arteries and veins which were the roads tracing their ways through the buildings, rushing in and out of view, over and under and besides and in front of each other in the furtive dance that could only be described as life. Construction tugs meandered languidly through the space, carrying workers and building materials as the space-bound city stitched itself back together, the re-building of lives and stories and families and worlds taking physical form in the steel and glass.

“Hey, big guy.”

Shepard’s whisper pierced the silence hesitantly, concern sitting on her voice and riding on her lips to make Garrus’ jaw clench and his mandibles hug his face, tightly, as if they’re never going to let go. Her hand floats through the sea of light thrown into the room by the nebula, caught by the ambient dust and particulates. The couch spoke quietly of her shift as Elizabeth moved to sit closer to Garrus, the material of her dress jacket screaming softly as she tenderly brought a second hand to Garrus’ arm, rested her head on his Shoulder, exhaled as she felt the warmth of his skin on her cheek, the sound of his heartbeat travelling to her enhanced ears, welcomed by a desperate mind, spinning to figure out what was wrong, betrayed none by her steady heart or reassuring eyes.

Silence, again, reigned over the room.

Until it didn’t.

“Talk to me, Garrus.”

It was a simple enough request, quiet, and earnest, and loving, the whispered syllables cutting through the veil of silence before slicing through Garrus’ placid face, driving him upwards, to the window with long strides, his left arm coming to rest against the glass with a muted grasp. He looked downward, eyes staring through the grid and the lights, the sparks of lives and nights and days, seeing beyond all of it. The tempest in his mind revolved around one point, a singularity of silence into which his eyes stared. A void, moving, growing, swallowing him the more he stared but threatening to engulf him faster if he didn’t. Faces, at the edge of the void. Twelve faces, all different species, all smiling, all patronizing, all covered with blood. _So much blood. Paintings on the canvas of their smiles and the clinging stench of burning flesh and spent heatsinks._

Twelve faces, out of all the millions of lives lost, the innumerable lives given by those who knew much less what they signed up for when they were spared, robbed the choice of life in the middle of a war which could define the end of all. It wasn’t fair. _It never is._ So many lost, so many innocents, so many losses, so many brutal, crushing losses; but it was always these twelve. It wasn’t fair. _It never is._ His mind spun as he tried to reconcile them, reconcile the twelve individuals who haunted him, with whom he haunted himself, against the weight of the galaxy burning alive around him. They were just teammates. _They were never just teammates._ It was unforgivable. _Unconscionable._ It wasn’t fair. _It never is._

Out of the memories of nights clutching the blankets despite the burning itch under his plates, of shaking hands and more unstable mind, came out these faces, laughing, patronizing. _So much blood. Paintings on the canvas of their smiles and the clinging stench of burning flesh and spent heatsinks._

Twelve faces. Eleven that weren’t his. One that was. Still covered in blood. _So much blood._

His voice was dry, hoarse, raspy.

“It was one year ago, Elizabeth. Today.”

The couch yelled its protest as Elizabeth stood up, the cushions exhaling as they lost her weight and the leather reached for her, a soft stride taking her to his side. Her gaze matched his, staring out into the hauntingly beautiful scene before them, distant, empty. Her voice was soft, riddled with love and dripping with care, borne of many late nights and shattered peace’s. This was an issue they hadn’t talked about, not really. Sure there had been a few comments, more banter than anything else after Sidonis had walked off the Citadel with his head still intact, but he had never really discussed it. Not really.

“Tell me, Garrus.”

The sound that escaped his mouth was friend of both laugh and grunt, but neither in form nor passionate in sound. His voice was soft, privately shared with her, his subvocals rich and deep with emotions that couldn’t be found in his words.

“I got to Omega so eager to help, Liz, so idealistic. Ready to make a change, a real change for good. And so were they,  all of them. It’s why they started following: give a group who want to do good an ideal to follow, and they’ll work until they’re dead to follow it. Well, I guess they did.

I never said… never stated I wanted to be their leader. I was there for myself, myself alone. Maybe it really was to try and make a difference, avoid the red tape and hit that scum where it lives. Maybe I was just trying to get myself killed… I used to be sure which, not so much anymore. Too much grey. But I never wanted a team. I told myself they were coming along because they wanted to, tagging along on my personal ops, and whatever they did, wherever they pointed their gun wasn’t my problem.

I wanted to believe it, so much, that I wasn’t leading them, that they weren’t following me that I convinced myself of it. I just, wasn’t ready, didn’t want that responsibility. I mean, come on: twice washed-up C-Sec cop who couldn’t even remember to duck when we started going after Saren leading a team of hardened fighters who were bound by nothing more than their “good” word? Half of these people I would have been scared of on the Citadel. Probably still was on Omega. And I was going to lead them? No, I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t let myself believe I was. So I convinced myself otherwise. And then…”

Garrus’ breath hitched, his glass shaking in his hand as the narrative broke, Shepard’s body moving closer, her hand finding his shoulder as he continued, his eyes getting distant, clear with grief and murky with memory.

“Then, I killed them. All of them. Sure, I wasn’t the one holding the gun, but I let them get ambushed, let myself get sloppy. I lost track of what I was doing and how it was happening, and eleven men got the shit end of the stick for it. You know, Montague and Erash were still alive when I got back? The rest of the team they were dead, strewn about like some sort of broken dolls. But Montague and Erash, they were still fighting. Montague had been shot at least six times, Erash eight, that Salarian was one tough bastard. I guess STG will do that to you, if Mordin is anything to go off of. They were both half dead, and it was only the stims that kept them going… you don’t survive when half your body is medigel.

I got there and they were both holed up on the bottom floor, firing blindly over the top. Montague noticed me first, sliding over as I got in cover next to him, and we started going to work. We had been in tight spots before, but nothing like this. Montague was the first to go, bullet through the head. Clean, easy. Crumpled to the floor like a dropped rag. Erash, he kept going. But eventually they got him, shot through the throat. While he was dying, he handed me a datapad, some sort of look in his eyes, like he knew this would happen. I finally made it to the second floor, and the mercs laid off a bit during the night… during one of the lulls I looked through the datapad.

They were letters, Liz. Letters to family, friends, even kids. I had never considered what those men had, what was behind them. I had, almost nothing. My dad and I, we hadn’t spoken for years, you were dead, the Normandy crew was all but scattered… But them, they had something, a life, a family. They weren’t alone. And I hadn’t ever thought of it. Never considered the fact that… well, that they weren’t alone. And I killed them.

They all wanted to make this galaxy a better place. Every one of them. It’s why we all joined together. I call them a team, but they turned into so much more, Shepard. They were a family, for two years. They were my brothers, in arms and ideologies. I miss them. It might be easier, if I hadn’t killed them. But I was the one who made the mistake, it was my call that put those bullets through their heads. And now I’m making judgement calls for the Turian Hierarchy, with so many more lives under me. I couldn’t keep eleven men alive, but now I’m given a few hundred thousand?”

Garrus sighed, his eyes closing while the plates around his eyes dropped to a deep shade of cerulean. His voice cracked when he spoke again, his subvocals dropping to the octave reserved for deep mourning.

“Above all, I miss them. Wish I knew what they’d be doing during this damned war, since they’d bedoing something. Leaving’s a bitch when you  never get to say goodbye..”

The pause within the room was pregnant as Garrus ended, the remainder of his breath exhaling with sorrow and defeat carried on it. He didn’t turn his head as he heard her pad into the kitchen, listened to glasses meet and liquid pour, practiced stealth bringing her to his side gain, a glass to his hand. Her voice was louder, this time, stronger, the love carried not by a whisper but her voice.

“You know, Garrus, there’s a human tradition for this. Don’t know what Turians do, when people leave, but in humans, we drink to them. Don’t know why, probably just an excuse to get drunk a little bit more, goodness knows humans will find a reason to get drunk in everything. But, when somebody leaves, we break out the glasses, and somebody says a toast. All the N7’s used to get together every time somebody… left us. Those who could get leave would, those who wouldn’t’d usually send some sort of message or something. We’d all get together, drink for a night and tell stories about whoever we had lost. At the end of the night, the CO would buy everyone a round of drinks, and the youngest Marine in their Platoon would give a toast to the passed, followed by the CO. I swear, I’ve never seen a bunch of N7 Marines get so… respectful, that ceremony alone was so much more serious than the actual funeral. We’d all down our drinks, and then put the helmet on The Wall.”

Garrus’ eyebrow plates raised and Liz laughed softly, her eyes growing ever so slightly more distant.

“It was just a bunch of N7 Breather Helmets put on shelf behind the bar, from all those we had lost. Too many nametapes… The plaque above read ‘MIA List’. N7’s are technically ever listed as ‘Missing In Action’. According to the phrase taught to every recruit: ‘N7’s only ever die when Marines stop going to battle with red stripes on their arms. And since this stripe will always be on the front lines, no N7 will ever die.’ Just a bunch of bravado bullshit, but it somehow made us all feel better. We’d put their nameplates on the front, and then put it on the shelf, next to all the others, salute it on our way out. Just a final good-bye.”

As she finished, Liz sniffed slightly, reminding herself that Marines don’t cry as she wiped her eyes, a single tear threatening to escape her eyes. Garrus laughed, dryly, little humor in it.

“We don’t have a helmet, or a platoon, or a bar, Liz.”

“No, big guy, but we do have alcohol. And I make great toasts. So, being the youngest Marine in the room…”

Liz took a step back, raising her glass, Garrus’ raised in, if confused, emulation.

“To the Archangel Team, taken too early by men too wicked to realize the gift they had given Omega. You gave the people on that station hope when they had none, and showed them how to stand up and fight for what they believed. May your families rest easy knowing that you did more good on that station than many do in a lifetime. Charge me the parting glass, and may your rest be peaceful knowing you helped many and were an inspiration to us all. To the Archangel team.”

Garrus gave Liz a confused look as she raised her glass higher, a small giggle stifling itself in her throat as his eyes scrutinized her face for a hint as to what he was to do.

“Say something, Garrus. Doesn’t have to be long.”

“uhh… To the Archangel Team. Good men, gone too soon, loved too much.”

Liz’s glass found Garrus’  and even he was able to recognize the motion as they both threw their shots back, the alcohol burning its way down their throats, coughs coming from both at the strength of the liquor.

“Spirits, Shepard, was that Ryncol?”

“A strong toast needs a strong drink.”

“You trying to poison me?”

“Something like that.”

Silence almost reigned as the two glasses were set down on the table, but the sounds of Shepard and Garrus making their way back to the couch staved it away, as did the soft sound of her laugh at his still bitter face at the perpetually bitter alcohol. When they sat down, Liz moved closer to Garrus, putting her feet on the couch and resting her head on his shoulder, grateful for the rare absence of armor, her arms wrapped around his torso. Her voice was soft, caring, confident against the deadly silence which had been banished from the room, his low, rumbling, the subharmonics echoing through her body.

“You feel better, G? I know it’s a human tradition, but did it help?”

“A little, yeah. These nights aren’t going to get better in one drink, but it’s a start, and that’s all I can ask for, right?”

“Hey, a start is better than nothing. Besides, if one drink won’t fix it, there’s still a full two bottles in their.”

“Two bottles of Ryncol? Why do we…”

“Compliments of Wrex, and I quote ‘For when I come over, so we can have a real party.’ “

“Leave it to Wrex to gift us the only legal poison.”

“And leave it to me to use it for a toast.”

“Only you, Shepard.”

“Only us, Vakarian.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I noticed Garrus' team on Omega isn't really covered much after ME2 and the occasional reference, so I wanted to give it a bit more screen-time (?), especially how he deals with it. Tried a few new techniques with the writing style, but I liked the way they turned out, and especially Garrus' whole explanation in the middle. Anyways, hope you enjoy, and please leave comments! I love feedback, and while I know I haven't posted much, I should have a new story for Elizabeth coming soon, and be writing more soon (Winter break, yay.) But all that is made especially by your comments, so please comment, I love hearing what y'all think! And Kudos, love kudos. Basically, compliment me because I love compliments. Or just enjoy it. Mainly that. Enjoy!


	8. Ch.8 - His Greatest Cure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrus and Shepard deal with the loss of the model of a scientist salarian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize I haven't written in a while, sorry for that. Life happened, and I think I needed a break from writing for personal reasons. 
> 
> But, I'm mostly back. No guarantees on how regular I'll be posting, but hopefully I'll be writing things nonetheless. 
> 
> Hopefully I'm not too rusty and this isn't absolute garbage. Any comments I would greatly appreciate! But above all, I hope you enjoy it!

Normandy Cargo Bay, 1700 Hours

The room was filled with the calamity of a shuttle’s engines powering down, the thunderous roar giving way to the persistent hum of the shuttle’s mass effect field as the mechanical whirr of the docking clamp arms carried the ship into docked position, the thunderous locking ending all sounds of the shuttle but the space still filled with the hums and whirrs which came with the most advanced warship of the Alliance Navy. But as the door opened, as Liara’s armored foot made hard contact with the deck, it seemed to echo as a cry in a silent room.

Garrus stepped forwards to follow her off, the helmet under his arm covered in dust and debris, his face looking all the more weary for the streak of grease and red sand which ran across it, his usually obsidian black armor lackluster under the layers of dust and sand which itched at the joints. His heavy steps made their way across the small interior of the shuttle before he noticed a sound behind him, or rather the lack of sound, his head pivoting to see Shepard, still firmly planted in her seat, her eyes staring at a spot a few paces in front of her on the deck plating, but clearly seeing nothing.

Non-armored footsteps sounded as Cortez rounded the shuttle, a watchful eye surveying the small ship up and down, looking for any and all signs of flight damage.

“Hey, Vakarian, I was gonna start the post-op decom cycle ASAP so I could get a look at her CO2 scrubbers.”

A concerned gaze met Cortez as he looked  up at the Turian, no words said before Cortez saw the figure sitting in the shuttle, nodded, and closed the door behind him, the whirr of the mechanism ending in a pressurized whine, sealing the two occupants in silence.

Troubled footsteps brought Garrus next to Elizabeth, his armor shuffling  an sanding itself as he sat down on her left, his elbows resting on his thighs, hands clasped in front of him. The position had been alien to him 3 years ago, as alien as the human he was currently sitting next to. _Well, I guess some things had to rub off_.

Silence filled the cabin once more, neither awkward nor comfortable, a muted crescendo to the moment it broke, the double-toned voice which came at almost a whisper, but sounded as loud as an explosion to Liz’s ears.

“Shepard… Liz…”

At the sound of her name Elizabeth slowly raised her head, her eyes a hollow green, almost sunken into her pale face. Her hands rested on her legs, fingers spread as if she was going to try and grasp them, but instead just sitting, un-moving, her mind neither comprehending nor much caring what it is that she did with herself.

Slowly, she spoke, almost a whisper for reverence of the quiet which cloaked them. Her voice was steady, neither cracking nor rising nor falling with any sort of intonation, statements of fact more than passion.

“He’s gone, Garrus. Mordin, he’s… gone.”

A slight chill ran through Garrus’ chest as he remembered looking up at the Tower, seeing the blooming flower of red and orange and yellow which had caused him and Liara so much celebration, remembered looking down to see the somber eyes behind Shepard’ breathing mask stand over the hunched shoulders.

“Yeah, I suppose he is.”

Shepard resumed her examination of the plating in front of her, Garrus’ gaze matching hers as he noticed the slight scuff on the top of the deck plating, no sound coming from either as the statements sat like heavy air around their feet, weighing them down as their minds worked to understand the loss of their friend, sat together in equal parts solace and vigil, the universe as silent to their pain as the room they were in.

“Did you have your comms open? Before the explosion?”

Garrus turned to Elizabeth as she spoke, her eyes nor her body changing position, the question posed in perfect stillness.

“No, both Liara’s and my comms got fried while we were running through Brutes and reaper feet.”

Liz let out a soft chuckle underneath her breath, her left hand reaching out and patting Garrus’ thigh before returning to her own, her position changing so that she was leaning on her right elbow, her head remaining almost perfectly still.

“Mine was still functional, and on. And after he rode that elevator all the way up, while I was running back to you guys, it got blasted with this spurt of static, and then I could hear him, clear as day, like there were no coms at all. You know what he did?”

“Hmm.”

“He sang. Mordin Solus, brilliant geneticist, professor, an STG operative so good the Salarian’s _re-hired_ him after he left sang right before his death. And not only did he sing, no. He sang his own personal adaptation of ‘Modern Major General’. He sang one of the most up-beat, hilarious, songs ever put to human stage.”

Elizabeth let that statement sit for a few seconds as Garrus listened before she chuckled again, a little bit harder beneath her breath, Garrus soon following suit, his voice low and somber but gently laced with amusement.

“He certainly had his moments.”

“Yeah, he definitely did. I’m going to miss that bastard.”

Garrus nodded gently as Liz’s face fell from the gentle smile it had donned, back to the implacid nonchalance which it was wearing earlier, her mouth hovering in a pursed straight line before she laughed again, her voice coming through this time in three staggering but almost hearty chuckles. Her head turned, her green eyes filled with some semblance of mirth as the corners of her mouth raised softly into a small smile.

“Did I ever mention he was the first to catch on to us?”

Mandibles flared as Garrus chuckled in turn, his eyebrows raising in a characteristic Vakarian smirk. His voice this time not just laced but tasting of amusement.

“You know, I think you forgot to.”

Elizabeth nodded as she talked, looking up and examining the ceiling as she watched her memory replay scenes as if they were yesterday, a twinkle amidst the green as pleasant days burnt away the immediate pain of the loss.

“Yeah. Mentioned he wanted to talk about ‘Medical Matters’ – that was the point I knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant. He talked about stress, sexual activity, but then he mentioned something about chafing, going so far as to recommend against ‘Ingesting’. I swear, if I wasn’t blushing so furiously about the fact that anyone had found out about us, I would have considered decking him right there.”

An open laugh began in Shepard at her laugh sentence, a matching one leaving Garrus’ flared mandibles as they both pictured the scene, glancing sideways at each other in utter amusement. Garrus spoke through his laughter, the merriment dying down as he finished his statement.

“You know, he was always an interesting one. Once confronted me about the Thulium in my skin, asked for a tissue sample for ‘Radiation reaction tests’. I told him he wouldn’t get near me with a knife if he bought me four sets of Thanix cannons… crazy scientist. I’m going to miss him.”

Deck plates were once again examined as Elizabeth solemnly responded.

“Me too, Garrus. Me too.”

Quiet, silence.

“But you know, I don’t think he would have had it any other way.”

Sounds came softly from Liz’s left as Garrus tilted his head slightly, inquisitive eyes meeting hers as they looked at each other. A small grin played at the right side of Elizabeth’s mouth as she spoke.

“I mean, think about it. After the genophage, he spent years trying to help people, his clinic on Omega was a tiny fraction of what he’d done. The brightest moment of his career was modifying a phage which has almost wiped out an entire species, and he’d spent the rest of his life trying to atone for it. I don’t care what he said, he felt guilty. Hell, I’m convinced that’s half the reason he joined our team – maybe he could make it up by saving those colonists. But he was finally given a chance to, if not make it better, at the very least correct it for the future, to undo his mistake.”

Liz paused, her eyes glass as she thought about her words, placed them perfectly to explain as much to herself as to Garrus the beauty in her friend’s sacrifice.

“The biggest achievement of his life was killing billions, but he gave his own life to correct that mistake. I think even he’d agree that there’s something inherently beautiful about that.”

Garrus nodded, looking softly at Shepard as he thought about her words, his mind replaying reel after reel of a hyperactive doctor flitting about his lab, poking and prodding every problem faster than others could identify them. He saw a wrinkled face missing half a horn, deep black eyes which held such intelligence and hope over such a pit of guilt and regret. He saw a friend whom he had grown to appreciate more and more the longer he knew him, saw a conscience unable to justify its actions to itself not to mention the galaxy, and a casket which carried with it such atonement and amends as few are able to grasp.

“You’re right. Mordin was many things, but regret never quite fit him. Besides, who wouldn’t want to die knowing they just took a major step forwards for the survival of all sentient life in the universe?”

“We should all be so lucky.”

Garrus chuckled under his breath before standing up, Liz doing the same until they were facing each other, a few feet from one another, their hands reaching out and grasping each other, blue eyes meeting green as Garrus spoke, the lower end of his subharmonics rumbling through Shepard’s chest.

“It’s going to take a while to accept that Mordin’s gone. But at least he died correcting one of the biggest atrocities in the galaxy.” Garrus took a deep breath before continuing. “Wars are never easy on the friends. We put ourselves in the line of fire without ever thinking about it because it’s what we do, what we have to do, if only for ourselves. But watching friends be taken? That’s never an easy day. Mordin was a great friend, and losing him hurts. All that means now, though, is that it’s up to us to make his death mean something; up to us to put his name on that wall upstairs and make sure we’re around to show it to all the new Krogan that’ll be everywhere.”

A very warm, very comfortable, very human hand moved up and cupped Garrus’ scarred mandible as Elizabeth spoke, her voice as soft and gentle as her touch.

“We’ll make it mean something, big guy. One way or another. But until then, Mordin left us a lot of good stories to tell, and I’ve got a few beers in my cabin. Let’s go celebrate the life and death of one of the craziest, wackiest, and best friends we’ll ever have.”

“Don’t forget savior of the Krogan.”

The shuttle door opened quickly as Elizabeth’s fist slammed into the release, a startled Cortez looking up from his datapad next to the hatch before smiling in relief at Garrus and Shepard as their heavy boots knocked their way onto the deck. As they heard the welcome hustle and bustle of a warship envelop them, hug them as they returned to life and reality the specter of loss still hung over their heads, a friend’s spot in the galaxy empty. But they both smiled nonetheless, a smile tinged with sadness and made more of satisfaction than happiness. It was a smile which knew that this was not the loss of a friend brutally torn from life, ragged holes left around their name made of regrets and tasks yet to be done in this life; but rather the surrendering of a future to pay for all those it had robbed, a departure of a doctor who had found his greatest cure.


End file.
